Palifornia 

gional 

3ility 


.  OF  CALIF.  LIBRARY.  LOS  ANGELES 


OTHER  BOOKS  BY  DR.  LOCKE 


A  MAN'S  REACH 

12mo,  net,  $1.00 
FREEDOM'S  NEXT  WAR  FOR  HUMANITY 

12mo.  net,  SO  cents 
THE  TYPICAL  AMERICAN 

12mo,  net,  25  cents 
A  NINETEENTH-CENTURY  CRUSADER 

12mo,  net,  25  cents 


Daybreak  Everywhere 


BY 
CHARLES  EDWARD  LOCKE 


"Out  of  the  shadows  of  the  night 

The  earth  rolls  into  the  light; 

It  is  daybreak  everywhere." 

— Longfellow 


THE  METHODIST  BOOK  CONCERN 

NEW  YORK  CINCINNATI 


Copyright,   1919,  by 
CHARLES  EDWARD  LOCKE 


First  Edition  Printed  August  1919 
Reprinted  October  1919 


AFFECTIONATELY  DEDICATED 

TO 
CHARLES  EDWARD  LOCKE,  JR. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

FOREWORD 9 

I.  THE  REBIRTH  OP  LIBERTY 11 

II.  TIME  A  JUST  RETRIBUTOR 27 

III.  THE  NEW  MANHOOD 41 

IV.  THE  NEW  DUTY 59 

V.  SEEING  THE  BLUE  IN  THE  SKY 81 

VI.  THE  NEW  MINISTRY 107 

VII.  MONUMENTS 119 

VIII.  THE  NEW  GENTLENESS 139 

IX.  THE  ROMANCE  OP    MAKING    A    LIPE — THEODORE 

ROOSEVELT 155 

X.  THE  NEW  MORALITY. 181 

XI.  THE  NEW  DAY.  .  203 


FOREWORD 

THE  sunrise  is  nature's  most  marvelous  apoca- 
lypse. "When  morning  gilds  the  skies"  the  awak- 
ening heart  breaks  forth  into  rapturous  praise. 
Nothing  seems  more  ^terminable  than  a  long 
night  of  fearful  forebodings,  but  with  the  morn- 
ing the  shadows  flee  away  and  renewed  hope 
comes  with  the  break  of  day.  The  night  is  the 
promise  of  the  day,  and  the  morning  light  will 
ever  follow  the  midnight  gloom  until  that  ec- 
static eternal  morning  whose  radiant  sun  shall 
know  no  setting. 

There  have  been  many  glorious  mornings  in 
the  hurrying  years,  but  none  more  significant, 
because  of  its  glad  consummation  and  its  happy 
prophecies,  than  this  auspicious  daybreak  which 
"dapples  the  drowsy  east  with  spots  of  gray." 

"The  day  begins  to  break,  and  night  is  fled 
Whose  pitchy  mantle  over- veiled  the  earth." 

We  who  are  alive  to-day  have  the  high  privilege 
of  participating  in  the  most  thrilling  epoch  of  all 
history.  Never  again  with  pessimistic  tones 
should  we  talk  about  the  world's  problems  and 
impossibilities,  for  problems  are  only  opportuni- 
ties, and  impossibilities  are  only  calls  to  imme- 
diate achievement.  How  can  sensible  people  talk 
any  longer  about  the  world  getting  worse? 

This   little  volume   is  an  unpretentious  con- 

9 


10  FOREWORD 

tribution  to  the  sentiment  that  there  is  a  steady 
evolution  of  the  good,  and  that  each  passing  dec- 
ade is  witnessing  an  approach  to  the  fulfillment 
of  the  scriptural  promise:  "For  evildoers  shall  be 
cut  off:  but  those  that  wait  upon  the  Lord,  they 
shall  inherit  the  earth."  It  is  difficult  for  the 
author  to  differentiate  between  a  gloomy  pes- 
simism and  an  absolute  distrust  in  the  God  of  the 
ages,  and  so  he  is  quite  impatient  with  those 
undoubtedly  devout  people  who  have  become 
obsessed  with  a  depressing  outlook  upon  people, 
things,  and  events. 

The  daybreak  of  every  morning  is  our  daily 
lesson  hi  a  sensible  optimism. 

"Night's  candles  are  burnt  out,  and  jocund  day 
Stands  tiptoe  on  the  misty  mountain-tops." 

THE  AUTHOR. 
Los  Angeles,  California,  August,  1919. 


I 

THE  REBIRTH  OF  LIBERTY 


A  soldier  boy  in  France  writing  home  to  his 
friends  in  Los  Angeles,  under  date  of  November 
13,  1918,  says: 

"DEAR  FOLKS:  My  eyes  have  seen  the  birth  of  a  new  world, 
and  I  am  still  dazed  with  the  awe  of  it.  I  am  glad  that  I  have 
been  permitted  to  contribute  my  humble  part  in  bringing  it 
about. 

"It  seemed  as  I  awoke  on  the  morning  of  the  llth  that  hell 
itself  had  broken  its  bounds  and  invaded  this  land.  Used  as 
I  had  become  to  the  noise  of  battle,  still  the  pandemonium  of 
that  morning  seemed  tterrific  as  the  big  guns  hurled  forth  their 
charges  of  death  and  destruction  with  ceaseless  roar,  as  the 
giant  shells  passed  screaming  overhead  and  burst  with  thun- 
dering crashes,  and  as  the  many  fleets  of  airplanes  with  un- 
muffled  engines  circled  about  before  heading  for  enemy  terri- 
tory. The  air  we  breathed  seemed  to  be  charged  with  a  sense 
of  impending  events — but  what? 

"Suddenly,  with  an  abruptness  far  more  startling  than  seems 
possible,  all  noise  ceased.  The  terrible  guns  became  mute,  the 
screaming  shells  flew  no  more  nor  burst  with  their  terrific  thun- 
dering. Everything  became  hushed  and  still,  and  nature  her- 
self stopped  breathing  and  seemed  to  say  'What  next?'  But 
soon  came  stealing  up  the  valley  the  sound  of  a  church  bell, 
then  another,  and  another,  till  from  all  directions  came  the 
sweet  tones  of  church  bells  that  had  been  silent  as  the  grave 
for  four  long  years.  Such  a  heaven-born  sweetness  I  have 
never  heard  before,  and  its  effects  upon  me  as  I  stood  there 
with  bared  head  seemed  to  touch  the  bottommost  depths  of 
my  soul.  'Peace  on  earth,  good  will  to  men,'  I  muttered,  in- 
stinctively. Truly,  I  must  be  viewing  the  birth  of  a  new  world." 


CHAPTER  I 
THE  REBIRTH  OF  LIBERTY 

THE  eleventh  day  of  the  eleventh  month  of  the 
year  1918  will  go  down  into  the  years  as  the 
greatest  day  in  the  history  of  humanity. 

There  is  only  one  other  day  which  transcends  it 
in  sacredness  and  that  was  the  day  when  a  manger 
in  Bethlehem  became  the  cradle  of  a  new-born 
King  and  the  angels  from  heaven  sang,  "Peace  on 
earth,  good  will  to  men."  That  momentous  hour 
was  the  incarnation  of  human  liberty;  an  angel 
announced  it  and  a  celestial  chorus,  an  innumera- 
ble throng  of  heavenly  beings,  made  glad  the 
advent  morning. 

November  11,  1918,  is  the  day  when  the  pur- 
poses of  the  birth  of  Christ  reached  their  fullest 
fruition.  It  was  the  day  of  liberty's  enthrone- 
ment. Might  and  force  had  been  abjectly  de- 
feated, and  the  "illicit  ambitions"  of  selfishness 
had  been  forever  rebuked,  and  once  more  meek- 
ness and  love  and  justice  and  righteousness  have 
been  exalted. 

Never  was  there  such  a  day  of  jubilation  and 
joy.  On  the  advent  morning  there  were  no  fol- 
lowers of  the  Incarnated  Liberty  to  make  the  earth 
echo  with  happy  hallelujahs,  and  so  the  angels 
furnished  the  swelling  oratorios;  but  on  Monday, 

13 


14          DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

November  11,  1918,  a  multitudinous  host  of 
earthly  lovers  of  liberty  surged  up  and  down  the 
streets  and  avenues  of  the  cities  and  towns,  and 
along  the  lanes  and  highways  of  the  countryside, 
and  rejoiced  hilariously  and  thankfully.  It  was 
the  rebirth  of  liberty.  It  was  another  Christmas 
day,  and  a  mighty  company  of  earth's  happiest 
souls  made  the  world  rejoice  as  it  had  never 
before  rung  with  the  paeans  and  praises  of  right- 
eousness triumphant. 

It  marked  the  end  of  the  holiest  war  hi  all  his- 
tory, because  the  most  sacred  fundamental  ideals 
of  humanity  and  of  righteousness  had  been  as- 
sailed. An  obsessed  autocracy,  like  a  mad  bandit 
and  murderer,  held  up  a  peaceful  and  unsuspecting 
world,  and  it  ruthlessly  and  brutally  trespassed 
upon  all  the  holiest  possessions  of  the  soul.  The 
law  of  the  jungle  was  to  replace  the  law  of  love, 
and  might  was  to  be  exalted  above  right,  and  a 
savage  Kultur  above  all  Christian  Culture.  The 
Ten  Commandments  were  to  be  abrogated  and 
despised,  and  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  thrown 
into  the  discard;  and  gentleness  and  meekness 
and  love  and  justice  were  all  to  be  unpardonable 
sins.  All  of  this  because  a  Junker  militarism  was 
intoxicated  with  a  frenzy  for  world  domination. 

And  how  nearly  these  human  demons  came  to 
realizing  their  diabolical  designs  almost  makes  our 
heart  stand  still  as  we  remember  that  a  hundred 
days  before  the  savage  Huns  were  for  the  second 
time  within  forty  miles  of  Paris  and  a  few  furlongs 


THE  REBIRTH  OF  LIBERTY         15 

of  the  Channel ;  but  a  God  in  heaven  and  a  mighty 
host  of  invincible  chevaliers  on  earth  stood  firm 
for  liberty,  and  to-day  the  most  disgraced  and 
insufferable  personality  in  history  is  William 
Hohenzollern,  the  erstwhile  Kaiser  and  chief  of- 
fender of  the  predatory  Potsdam  gang. 

As  we  get  farther  and  farther  away  from  the 
bloody  Berlin  world-hold-up,  the  longer  perspec- 
tive will  help  us  to  a  clearer  understanding  of  the 
real  causes  of  the  war.  More  and  more  shall  we 
find  that  truth  and  civilization  were  hanging  in 
the  balance,  and  that  the  enemies  of  mankind  saw 
plainly  that  military  domination  could  not  be 
secured  without  the  utter  humiliation  and  de- 
struction of  Christianity. 

We  are  beginning  now  to  see  why  womanhood 
was  dishonored  and  childhood  was  despised,  and 
churches  and  costly  cathedrals  were  destroyed. 
Plainly  it  was  because  Christianity  glorified 
motherhood  and  sanctified  childhood,  and  taught 
that  love  is  the  greatest  thing  in  the  world,  and 
that  a  little  child  shall  lead  them;  all  of  these 
sacred  ideals  were  enshrined  hi  the  coming  of  a 
Bethlehem  Baby  on  the  first  Christmas  morning. 

German  materialism  was  very  much  irritated  at 
such  weak  sentimentalism,  and,  cooperating  with 
a  mad  militarism  armed  to  the  teeth,  it  purposed 
to  invalidate  all  of  the  teachings  of  the  lowly 
Nazarene  by  literally  wiping  Christianity,  its 
Christ,  and  its  Christmas  from  the  earth;  and 
thus  demonstrating  not  that  love  but  that  hate  is 


16          DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

the  greatest  thing  in  the  world,  not  that  the  meek 
but  the  mighty  shall  inherit  the  earth,  and  not 
that  a  little  child  but  that  a  proud,  arrogant, 
defiant,  modern  Attila  with  uncontrolled  instincts 
of  cruelty,  should  seize  the  crown  from  the  Beth- 
lehem mother  and  the  scepter  from  her  manger 
Child!  But  "who  was  this  uncircumcised  Philis- 
tine, that  he  should  defy  the  armies  of  the  living 
God?"  Only  another  haughty  garrulous  Goliath, 
who  was  at  length  shorn  of  his  power,  so  soon  as 
the  spirit  of  righteousness  and  truth  and  justice 
became  aroused  and  organized. 

Is  it  not  a  tragic  irony  of  fate  that  the  same 
people  who  gave  us  all  of  the  tender  and  exquisite 
legends  of  old  Santa  Glaus,  should  also  send  out 
into  the  world  the  most  Satanic  influence,  which, 
in  order  to  establish  itself,  must  betray  all  the 
romantic  traditions  of  the  Christmastide? 

Among  the  psychological  and  moral  causes  of 
the  world  war  there  is  the  conspicuous  one  that 
for  many  decades  a  destructive  criticism,  which 
was  aimed  at  the  very  soul  of  Christianity,  had 
been  propagated  by  certain  German  scholars. 
Materialism  and  militarism  were  the  other  two 
partners  in  this  malevolent  triumvirate.  Professor 
Cram,  in  his  book,  Germany  and  England,  pub- 
lished before  the  war,  says  frankly  that  the 
destruction  of  Christianity  itself  was  one  of  the 
ignoble  purposes  of  German  scholars.  He  proph- 
esied the  founding  of  a  great  world  empire  under 
the  masterful  domination  of  Germany,  and  de- 


THE  REBIRTH  OF  LIBERTY         17 

clared  that  "Germany  is  also  preparing  to  create 
a  world  religion." 

The  arrogancy  of  the  Kaiser  and  Von  Hinden- 
burg  was  equaled  by  the  haughty  superiority  of 
the  defiant  scholars  and  materialists  of  Germany. 
There  were  other  bandits  besides  those  who  car- 
ried swords.  Never  before  was  there  such  a  dia- 
bolical conspiracy  against  Christian  ideals  and  the 
welfare  of  mankind.  The  university,  and  even 
the  church,  joined  in  the  crusade.  Nothing  was 
to  be  left  of  British  and  French  and  American 
ideals — the  whole  vast  world  was  to  be  com- 
pletely Germanized. 

It  was  bad  psychology,  it  was  bad  militarism, 
and  it  was  bad  morals  when  the  Kaiser  led  his 
fierce  assault  upon  the  Christ-child  and  his  mother. 
No  man  of  intelligence  or  supposed  Christian  cul- 
ture ever  hurled  such  a  bitter  defiance  in  the 
face  of  high  heaven  as  did  Kaiser  William  when 
he  started  out  to  drive  the  Christmas  Child  out 
of  the  affections  and  loyalty  of  a  Christian  age. 
He  was  so  obsessed  with  his  dream  of  world  power 
that  he  lost  his  judgment. 

Some  faltering  folk  in  these  tragic,  uneasy,  after- 
the-war  days  have  feared  for  the  security  of  the 
Christian's  belief  in  God.  It  is  well  known  that 
among  the  pagans  it  is  a  custom  to  destroy  fa- 
vorite idols  for  not  preventing  calamity.  And  so 
to-day  there  are  some  people  who  are  talking  about 
a  "new  idea"  of  God,  by  which  they  mean,  of 
course,  a  new  God,  as  if  God  could  be  made  by  men. 


18          DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

But  it  is  to  be  observed  that  no  person  who 
has  been  earnestly  devoted  to  his  faith  is  raising 
any  doubtful  question  at  this  time;  it  is  only 
people  like  Mr.  H.  G.  Wells,  who  acknowledge 
that  religion  has  been  given  a  very  small  place 
in  their  lives,  but,  having  experienced  a  change 
of  heart  on  account  of  the  tragical  exigencies  of 
those  fearful  war  times,  are  not  only  seeking, 
after  long  indifference,  the  shelter  of  holy  altars, 
but  with  startling  audacity  they  arrogate  to  them- 
selves the  right  to  reconstruct  the  theology  of 
those  who,  even  hi  the  trying  ordeals  of  the  world 
crisis,  never  for  a  moment  faltered  in  their  faith 
hi  the  God  of  Elijah  and  of  Paul. 

People  are  very  little  interested  hi  a  new  God, 
another  Christ.  A  few  years  ago  a  retired  college 
president,  with  astounding  arrogance,  announced 
a  new  religion,  which  was  nothing  less  than  a 
recrudescense  of  Arianism,  intermingled  with  some 
old,  moldy,  and  abandoned  mummies  from  the 
sarcophagi  of  former  ages. 

The  statement  of  this  former  leader  in  the 
thought  of  his  generation  produced  merely  a 
seven  days'  wonder.  Who  now  cares  anything 
about  it?  It  has  gone  to  the  scrap-heap,  where  it 
will  find  good  company  and  undisturbed  oblivion 
with  the  literary  vanities  of  the  past.  While 
multitudes  read  Mr.  Wells's  Mr.  Britling  Sees  It 
Through  with  great  profit,  who  cares  anything 
about  his  more  recent  books  on  his  "new  religion"? 

No  man  leaves  much  of  a  legacy  to  humanity 


THE  REBIRTH  OF  LIBERTY         19 

who  spends  his  time  trying  to  patch  up  God,  and 
creating  little  deities  of  his  own,  and  who  is  always 
wondering  what  the  world  would  have  missed  if 
he  had  not  come  to  instruct  it.  An  old  lady, 
thinking  to  compliment  her  minister,  said,  "We 
never  knew  what  sin  was  till  you  came  among 
us." 

Dr.  Eliot's  pragmatic  pantheism  died  in  early 
infancy  because  it  was  utterly  inadequate  for  all 
moral  and  spiritual  emergencies;  it  had  no  carry- 
ing quality,  no  momentum,  no  destination!  It 
had  no  pardon  for  sin,  and  no  hereafter.  An 
emasculated  Christianity  is  no  Christianity.  Men 
will  not  tolerate  a  religion  to-day  that  leaves 
Christ  out — the  supernatural  Christ — the  Son  of 
God — the  Son  of  man.  And  Mr.  Wells  is  in  the 
same  predicament. 

A  clever  liberal  preacher  in  this  country  gave 
up  his  pulpit,  because  he  said:  "You  cannot  save 
people's  souls  by  preaching  moral  essays  to  them. 
Saving  souls  may  be  nonsense,  but  these  earth 
children  seem  to  hunger  for  some  such  thing  as 
that,  for  something  that  has  a  scheme  of  sacrifice 
and  redemption  in  it,  that  lies  beyond  and  behind 
the  sky,  where  is  a  Person  who  is  more  than  man." 
And  he  resigned  his  pulpit. 

The  world  does  not  want  a  Christ  who  cannot 
save  unto  the  uttermost.  Men  will  not  long  wor- 
ship a  God  which  they  have  made  with  their 
own  hands;  and  a  man  seeking  for  truth  will  not 
submit  to  the  leadership  of  anyone  who  cannot 


20          DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

guide  to  divine  levels.  A  merely  human  Christ 
cannot  redeem  the  world,  will  not  satisfy  the 
soul,  nor  solve  the  mysteries. 

The  world  will  never  outgrow  Christ,  because 
he  came  to  heal  the  world's  wounds,  and  assuage 
the  world's  sorrows,  and  solve  the  world's  mys- 
teries, and  stop  the  world's  wars,  and  forgive  the 
world's  sins,  and  to  point  the  world  to  an  eternal 
paradise,  and  to  be  a  friend  to  a  lonely  and  tired 
and  forsaken  humanity. 

A  soldier1  tells  that  at  the  battle  of  Lens  they 
fought  until  they  were  nearly  exhausted.  He  says 
that  hi  one  day  his  command  repulsed  four 
counter-attacks  by  the  enemy.  They  kept  it  up 
four  days  and  nights,  working,  watching,  fighting, 
with  only  a  few  moments  of  sleep  snatched  now 
and  then.  When  at  last  they  were  relieved  and 
at  midnight  started  back  to  then*  billets  eight 
miles  in  the  rear,  many  of  the  men  dropped  out, 
one  by  one,  from  sheer  fatigue.  The  others 
plodded  on.  He  says: 

"We  had  gone  back  quite  a  long  way  when 
those  of  us  who  were  still  trudging  ahead  heard 
the  sound  of  the  bagpipes — fault  at  first,  but 
growing  nearer  all  the  tune.  And  they  were 
playing,  The  Campbells  are  Coming!'  Instinc- 
tively we  straightened  our  weary  backs,  held  our 
heads  higher,  and  began  to  march — not  to  plod. 
It  was  the  brigade  pipers;  and  when  they  met  us 
they  wheeled  about  and  played  us  in,  the  bag- 

1  Lieutenant  Ernest  G.  Odell  in  the  American  Magazine. 


THE  REBIRTH  OF  LIBERTY         21 

pipes  shrilling  'The  Campbells  are  Coming',  and 
'Cock  o'  the  North/  and  airs  like  that." 

Then  the  pipers  went  back  to  pick  up  the 
stragglers,  and  they  played  them  in  too.  Over 
and  over  again  they  did  this,  bringing  the  men 
by  twos  and  threes,  and  even  one  man  at  a  time. 
It  was  daybreak  before  the  last  tired  soldier  was 
brought  back. 

In  these  fierce  and  fatiguing  battles  of  life  it  is 
the  music  of  the  old  faith  and  the  old  truths  that 
will  buoy  our  flagging  feet.  We  must  keep  up  the 
old  cheery  music  of  Moses  and  the  Lamb  until 
we  have  played  and  sung  a  tired  and  wounded 
humanity  safe  home — home  to  the  old  fireside  of 
love — home  to  the  Father  heart.  A  "new  God" 
may  satisfy  foolish  philosophers  who  do  not 
acknowledge  the  need  of  any  God,  but  a  humanity 
that  is  battling  for  the  freedom  of  the  world,  and 
is  worn  out  and  wounded,  will  be  satisfied  with 
nothing  short  of  the 

„       "Faith  of  our  Fathers!  living  still 

In  spite  of  dungeon,  fire,  and  sword." 

This  great  world  crisis  is  the  apotheosis  of 
Christianity.  The  world  war  was  not  precipitated 
because  of  the  failure  of  Christianity,  but  because 
of  the  triumphs  of  Christianity.  The  temptation 
of  Jesus  by  Satan  was  not  because  Christ  had 
faltered,  but  because  he  was  on  the  threshold  of 
mighty  achievements.  The  crucifixion  of  Jesus 
was  not  because  he  had  utterly  failed  in  his  three 


22          DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

years  of  earthly  ministry,  but  because  of  his 
transcendent  triumphs. 

Kaiserism  was  an  evil  born  out  of  due  time.  It 
sought  to  prevent  the  steady  growth  of  freedom 
and  democracy.  When  the  Satan  of  a  selfish  and 
cruel  autocracy  saw  that  a  government  of  and  by 
and  for  the  people  was  rapidly  spreading  over  the 
world,  and  that  imperialism  would  be  doomed  un- 
less this  onward  march  could  be  peremptorily 
stopped,  the  Kaiser  and  his  conspirators  designed, 
and  precipitated,  and  carried  on  the  fiercest,  most 
terrible  war  of  the  ages.  If  they  had  succeeded 
in  their  base  schemes,  then  pessimistic  saints  and 
carping  critics  might  have  cried  out  hi  either 
dismay  or  triumph  that  Christianity  is  a  failure. 
And  if  Christianity  had  not  been  able  to  arouse 
and  array  itself  against  this  modern  diabolism,  it 
would  have  registered  a  defeat,  and  might  have 
been  pronounced  a  failure;  but  just  as  Christianity 
was  not  a  failure  hi  the  beginning  because  "Get 
thee  behind  me,  Satan!"  quickly  disposed  of  the 
foul  tempter,  so  once  more  "Get  thee  behind  me, 
Satan,"  defeated  the  arch  enemy  of  God  and  of 
humanity,  and  compelled  the  defiant  Beast  of 
Berlin  to  ask  for  peace  terms. 

That  Christianity  had  vitality  and  wisdom  and 
courage  and  force  and  stratagem  and  faith  suffi- 
cient to  meet  this  frightful  assault  upon  its  ideals 
and  its  institutions  indicates  the  glory,  the  di- 
vinity, the  permanency,  the  virility,  and  the  holy 
origin  of  the  good  tidings  which  Jesus  lived  and 


THE  REBIRTH  OF  LIBERTY         23 

died  and  rose  again  to  establish  among  men  on 
everlasting  foundations. 

The  overthrow  of  the  Kaiser  is  Christ's  great 
victory  over  the  powers  of  death  and  darkness, 
and  we  have  already  entered  upon  a  new  and 
brighter  day.  The  final  overthrow  of  all  the 
forces  of  evil,  and  the  dawn  of  the  holy  millen- 
nium, will  be  hastened  hundreds  of  years  because 
of  the  victories  now  being  achieved  for  justice 
and  freedom  and  righteousness. 

To-day,  as  never  before,  Christ's  is  the  name 
above  every  name,  and  the  triumphs  of  the  hour 
are  the  glorious  transfiguration  of  Christ  and  his 
gospel  of  good  will  and  sacrifice. 

A  Jewish  rabbi  invidiously  declared  the  other 
day  that  in  the  future  events  would  be  measured 
not  by  A.  D.  and  B.  C.  but  by  "Before  and  after 
the  Great  War,"  and  that  1914  in  the  reconstructed 
calendar  would  be  the  Year  I. 

It  would  be  well  for  this  apostle  of  modern 
Judaism  to  reread  his  Gamaliel  and  listen  once 
more  to  the  old  Jewish  scholar  as  he  says:  "If  this 
counsel  or  this  work  be  of  men,  it  will  come  to 
nought;  but  if  it  be  of  God,  ye  cannot  overthrow 
it." 

Instead  of  relegating  to  oblivion  the  "Year  of 
our  Lord"  and  "Before  Christ"  this  great  vic- 
torious war  for  the  freedom  of  humanity  will 
more  than  ever  accentuate  the  birth  year  of  the 
Christ  of  Bethlehem. 

Never  was  Christ  so  regnant  in  the  heart  of 


24          DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

humanity,  and  never  has  any  year  been  more 
characteristically  a  year  of  our  Lord  than  the 
year  when  a  savage  and  brutal  military  autocracy 
received  its  death  blow. 

I  would  not  claim  for  myself  that  I  am  a  con- 
noisseur, but  I  am  quite  bold  enough  to  assert 
that  I  saw  an  extraordinarily  masterful  Pygmalion 
in  an  art  store  in  an  Eastern  city  the  other  day. 
It  was  by  an  English  painter  and  had  just  arrived 
from  London.  In  the  dim  background  of  the 
canvas  was  the  artist's  conception  molded  in  the 
clay  as  is  the  wont  of  sculptors.  In  the  foreground 
was  the  sculptor's  perfect  ideal  carved  out  of 
purest  marble,  an  exquisite  masterpiece  of  fault- 
less design  and  proportions.  Long  and  hard  had 
been  the  happy  labors  of  the  tireless  sculptor  to 
compel  the  marble  to  surrender  its  secret  and 
realize  to  him  his  most  perfect  dream.  It  is  now  a 
complete  and  brilliant  apotheosis  of  the  divinely 
beautiful  female  form. 

But  as  Pygmalion  has  patiently  toiled  upon  his 
masterpiece  he  has  fallen  passionately  in  love  with 
this  marble  creation  of  his  own  soul;  and  the 
ingenious  artist  represents  him  as  on  his  knees 
with  his  head  bowed  and  his  hands  clinging  to  the 
feet  of  the  statue  hi  earnest  supplication  to  his 
favorite  god  to  endow  his  statue  with  life.  As  he 
continues  his  prayer  with  importuning  tenacity,  the 
figure  is  represented  as  coming  gradually  to  life 
as  one  hand  is  stretched  upward  and  the  soft  pink 
tint  of  real  life  creeps  into  the  matchless  form. 


THE  REBIRTH  OF  LIBERTY         25 

The  further  story,  not  seen  of  course  in  the 
painting,  is  that  with  rapturous  joy  the  sculptor 
embraces  Galatea  as  a  perfect  gift  from  heaven, 
and  she  becomes  his  loving  wife  and  the  devoted 
mother  of  his  children. 

This  noble  classic  of  legendary  lore  comes  to  us 
with  the  exquisite  suggestion  that  we  may  labor 
with  such  noble  devotion  for  the  perfection  of  our 
holy  ideals  that  by  and  by  they  may  become  a 
vitalized  reality  and  find  faithful  exemplification 
in  our  own  humble  lives,  the  source  of  our  su- 
premest  joys  and  the  inspiration  of  our  most 
self-sacrificing  service  to  God  and  humanity. 

Christ  is  our  perfect  ideal.  When  the  rich 
young  ruler  came  and  asked  for  an  ideal,  Jesus 
told  him  to  give  all  he  had  to  the  poor  and  come 
and  follow  him.  The  young  man  was  not  willing 
— he  considered  the  sacrifice  too  great.  Unselfish 
ministry  to  humanity  about  us  is  the  holiest 
earthly  ideal  and  opens  at  last  the  gates  of  ever- 
lasting glory.  If  we  should  endeavor  to  achieve 
such  an  ideal,  there  would  be  another  coming  of 
Christ  to  our  home,  our  church,  our  country,  and 
our  world;  and  when  Christ  shall  thus  come  in 
humble  human  lives  like  our  own,  then  all  wars 
and  woes  will  cease,  and  the  peace  which  passeth 
all  understanding  shall  bless  humanity,  and  lib- 
erty born  and  reborn  shall  reach  its  full  fruition 
in  the  joyous  New  Day  whose  sun  shall  never 
set. 


II 

TIME  A  JUST  RETRIBUTOR 


Mine  eyes  have  seen  the  glory  of  the  coming  of  the  Lord; 

He  is  tramping  out  the  vintage  where  the  grapes  of  wrath  are 

stored; 

He  hath  loosed  the  fateful  lightning  of  his  terrible  swift  sword; 
His  truth  is  marching  on. — Jidia  Ward  Howe. 

Though  the  mills  of  God  grind  slowly,  yet  they  grind  exceed- 
ing small. — Frederick  von  Logaw. 

Whoso  diggeth  a  pit  shall  fall  therein. — Bible  Proverb." 


CHAPTER  II 
TIME  A  JUST  RETRIBUTOR 

THERE  is  a  statement  in  the  Bible,  no  less 
startling  because  it  is  most  familiar,  which,  with 
notable  directness,  declares:  "Be  not  deceived; 
God  is  not  mocked :  for  whatsoever  a  man  soweth, 
that  shall  he  also  reap."  Whether  we  consider 
this  declaration  from  a  biological,  psychological, 
civil,  military,  ethical,  or  religious  point  of  view, 
it  is  so  uniformly  true  that  it  may  be  accepted  as 
an  axiom  from  which  there  is  no  deviation. 

It  is  one  of  those  laws  in  the  natural  world 
which  have  very  illuminating  analogy  in  the  spirit- 
ual world.  "Do  men  gather  grapes  of  thorns,  or 
figs  of  thistles?"  Even  the  most  sanguine  op- 
timist in  the  marvelous  orchards  and  fields  of 
nature  would  not  be  foolish  enough  to  expect  to 
find  grapes  and  figs  among  thorns  and  thistles, 
and  yet  why  are  there  tragic  illustrations  of  the 
folly  about  us  continually  of  persons  who  are 
otherwise  fairly  wise  concerning  the  habits  of 
shrub  and  tree  life  who  in  their  moral  habits 
behave  as  if  it  were  absolutely  certain  that 
thorns  and  thistles  would  produce  grapes  and 
figs? 

The  Creator  maintains  the  order  of  the  universe 
by  certain  immutable  laws  of  equilibrium  and 

29 


30          DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

compensation.  If  a  person  might  sometimes  sow 
thistles  and  reap  grapes,  it  would  be  likewise  just 
as  possible  that  he  might  sometimes  sow  grapes 
and  reap  thistles.  There  would  be  great  con- 
fusion in  all  of  nature's  activities  if  some  condi- 
tions were  not  inexorably  fixed. 

If  a  horticulturist  would  be  considered  an  idiot 
as  he  sought  for  figs  among  thistles,  why  is  his 
idiocy  any  less  pronounced  when  he  expects  to 
gather  the  fruits  of  a  well-spent  life  from  years 
of  the  sowing  of  wild  oats? 

By  every  possible  object  lesson  God  seeks  to 
prepare  man  for  the  consequences  of  his  evil 
deeds.  It  was  true  in  all  the  long  centuries  before 
Paul  wrote  it  in  his  letter  to  his  friends  in  Galatia, 
and  it  has  been  an  unwavering  principle  present 
in  the  experiences  of  mankind  throughout  all  the 
succeeding  years. 

The  critical  events  of  the  last  five  years  are  an 
added  attestation.  "It  is  a  long  lane  which  does 
not  have  any  turning."  The  military  program  of 
an  arrogant  autocracy  has  been  marked  by  crim- 
inal conquest  ever  since  the  Hohenzollern  dynasty 
was  established  in  the  swamps  of  Prussia  four 
centuries  ago.  Except  for  the  rebuke  with  which 
Napoleon  for  a  time  retarded  the  progress  of 
those  European  highwaymen,  the  haughty  mon- 
ster, with  a  mania  for  territorial  aggrandizement 
and  world  domination,  has  increased  in  power, 
wealth,  pride,  and  defiance.  But  the  lane  found 
its  long-delayed  turning  on  the  eleventh  day  of 


TIME  A  JUST  RETRIBUTOR         31 

the  eleventh  month  of  the  year  of  our  Lord  1918 
— and  "God  is  not  mocked." 

The  word  "retribution"  is  not  hi  the  Bible,  but 
the  familiar  word  "punishment"  is  often  found. 
Again  and  again  we  are  told  that  "the  wages  of 
sin  is  death,"  and  that  "the  wicked  shall  be  turned 
into  hell  and  all  the  nations  that  forget  God." 
Again  and  again  God  says,  "I  will  punish,"  and 
Jesus  even  said  of  those  who  would  not  treat  their 
fellows  with  consideration  and  kindness  that  they 
should  go  away  into  "everlasting  punishment." 

The  ancients  in  their  mythology  denied  Nemesis 
as  a  goddess  of  divine  retribution.  And  every- 
where in  ancient,  mediaeval,  and  modern  times 
retribution  is  written  upon  the  records  of  those 
who  attempted  to  mock  God  and  sought  to  de- 
ceive him;  and  soon  discovered  that  "they  that 
sow  to  the  flesh  shall  of  the  flesh  reap  corruption." 

"Retribution"  is  not  a  beautiful  word,  but  it 
should  not  be  omitted  from  our  familiar  vo- 
cabulary. The  recent  years  have  written  a  new 
and  tragic  meaning  into  it. 

It  is  now  quite  reliably  authenticated  that  the 
easy  overthrow  of  Russia  by  Germany  can  be 
attributed  to  the  clandestine  cooperation  of  the 
Czarina,  who  was  a  German  princess,  a  cousin  of 
the  Kaiser,  and  a  partisan  of  the  Central  Powers. 
There  seems  to  have  been  continual  communica- 
tion between  the  Russian  court  and  the  German 
military  command,  and  there  is  conclusive  evi- 
dence that  the  Russian  people  were  betrayed  into 


32          DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

the  hands  of  the  enemy  by  the  members  of  the 
royal  household.  Through  her  conspiracies  and 
treacheries  the  Czarina  effected  the  ruin  of  Russia, 
her  adopted  country,  and  the  defeat  of  the  armies 
and  the  collapse  of  the  entire  political  structure. 
But  how  quickly  did  dire  disaster  and  retribu- 
tion come!  Soon  her  entire  family  was  driven 
into  distress  and  exile,  the  husband  and  son 
killed. 

The  whole  story  is  most  pitiful  and  startling, 
and  is  a  classic  instance  of  swift  retribution. 

Never  was  a  more  palpable  and  heinous  crime 
committed  against  another  nation  and  against 
civilization  than  when  the  unconscionable  Bis- 
marck forged  a  telegram  in  order  to  furnish  a  pre- 
text for  a  war  against  France  back  in  1870.  There 
were  exhaustless  mineral  stores  in  the  provinces 
of  France  which  bounded  Germany  on  the  west, 
toward  which  she  had  looked  enviously  for  years, 
and  the  iron  and  coal  there  found  in  abundance 
would  be  needed  by  the  predatory  Prussians,  as 
they  were  already  planning  world  domination, 
and  "the  man  of  blood  and  iron"  was  determined 
to  possess  them.  Germany  had  no  lofty  ideal  for 
which  to  fight.  She  built  up  her  military  machine 
to  a  point  which  made  the  French  army  despicable, 
and  the  Franco-Prussian  war  was  nothing  but  a 
villainous  holdup.  Among  all  the  crimes  to  the 
credit  of  the  Hohenzollerns  none  surpassed  the 
cold-blooded  intent  which  resulted  in  the  easy 
conquest  of  Napoleon  III  and  the  surrender  of 


TIME  A  JUST  RETRIBUTOR         33 

France  at  Sedan  September  1,  more  than  forty 
years  ago.  Out  of  that  ignoble  victory  Bismarck 
was  able  to  consolidate  all  of  the  smaller  states 
into  a  formidable  organization,  and  the  king  of 
Prussia,  William  I,  became  the  emperor  of  the 
new  German  empire. 

It  was  a  colossal  wrong;  and  France,  proud  and 
noble,  suffered  the  greatest  humiliation  in  her 
history.  Marshal  MacMahon's  defense  was  val- 
iant and  brilliant,  but  he  was  compelled  after  a 
bitter  fight,  which  cost  the  Germans  a  big  price 
in  dead  and  wounded,  to  surrender  more  than 
eighty  thousand  heroic  French  troops;  and,  beside 
all  the  cruel  devastations  of  war,  Germany  seized 
Alsace  and  Lorraine  and  compelled  France  to 
pay  an  indemnity  of  two  billions  of  dollars;  and 
the  Prussians  added  to  their  infamous  record  of 
robbery  and  murder. 

France  never  forgot  nor  forgave  this  crime 
against  her  dignity  and  her  liberties,  and  an  ad- 
vancing civilization  never  forgave  nor  forgot  it. 
But  the  Prussians,  knowing  that  Germany  needed 
another  large  indemnity  to  prosecute  wars  of  ag- 
gression, determined  that  the  first  day  of  August, 
1914,  was  the  tune  to  put  Bismarck's  declaration 
into  demonstration,  and  went  forth  to  "bleed 
France  white." 

But  France  was  better  prepared  this  time  for 
the  Berlin  bandits;  and  France  had  many  friends; 
and  France  was  ready  to  fight  for  her  homes  and 
her  sacred  altars;  and  France  was  reenforced  and 


34          DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

inspired  by  righteous  ideals;  and  France  had  the 
word  of  God;  and  France  believed  in  the  inexorable 
law  of  retribution  administered  by  a  righteous 
God;  and  so  once  again,  after  four  years  of  the 
bloodiest  war  of  the  ages,  the  armies  of  France 
met  the  German  bandits  at  Sedan — yea,  at  Sedan. 
Never  has  there  been  a  more  forceful  application 
of  the  law  of  retribution  which  follows  the  steps 
of  the  sinner  against  God  and  humanity  than  that 
these  belligerent  nations  should  meet  once  again 
at  Sedan.  It  was  a  pity  that  the  Iron  Duke 
could  not  have  been  there  to  feel  the  scorpion 
lashes  of  his  own  fatal  Nemesis,  but  another  man 
was  there  who  in  his  early  youth  had  been  un- 
speakably humbled  at  the  first  battle  of  Sedan. 
One  man  was  there  who  in  his  ardent  young 
manhood  felt  the  sting  and  dishonor  of  defeat 
and  surrender,  and  for  nearly  fifty  years  has 
believed  that  God's  laws  of  justice  would  some 
day  be  vindicated — yes,  he  was  there — General 
Foch  was  there,  guiding  with  unerring  purpose 
and  masterful  strategy.  The  divine  law  of  retri- 
bution was  operating  there  also,  and  the  second 
Sedan  wiped  out  the  infamy  of  the  first  Sedan, 
and  not  only  visited  upon  Germany  ignominious 
defeat  and  disaster,  but  a  righteous  God  then  and 
there  gave  the  Potsdam  highwaymen  their  death- 
blow and  sent  the  Hohenzollern  dynasty  reeling 
into  shameful  discard.  Yes,  it  is  a  long  lane 
which  has  no  turning.  Every  infraction  of  law 
and  every  offense  against  God  and  humanity  has 


TIME  A  JUST  RETRIBUTOR         35 

to  be  atoned  for  and  made  right.  The  reaping 
follows  the  sowing — "God  is  not  mocked." 

The  law  of  retribution  is  founded  as  much  in 
infinite  love  as  in  infinite  justice.  If  there  were  no 
penalties  attached  to  wrongdoing,  soon  the  evil- 
doers would  fill  the  whole  earth,  and  the  world 
would  become  the  abode  of  degenerates  and 
devils.  But  God  administers  a  law  which  also 
places  a  holy  premium  on  purity,  and  meekness, 
and  justice,  and  love.  God's  code  of  morals  con- 
tains the  straightforward  announcement:  "Evil- 
doers shall  be  cut  off.  ...  For  yet  a  little  while, 
and  the  wicked  shall  not  be:  yea,  thou  shalt 
diligently  consider  his  place,  and  it  shall  not  be. 
But  the  meek  shall  inherit  the  earth;  and  shall 
delight  themselves  in  the  abundance  of  peace." 

The  Holy  Scriptures  are  very  familiar  with  the 
beautiful  words  "recompense"  and  "reward,"  for 
just  as  misfortune  inevitably  results  from  the 
sowing  of  wild  oats  and  wicked  deeds,  so  do  the 
fine  fruitions  of  life  come  from  the  faithful  sowing 
of  good  seed.  It  is  a  comfort  to  know  that  there 
is  a  benign  law,  which  is  beneficently  inexorable 
in  its  fulfillment,  that  if  a  man  sows  good  seed, 
he  will  not  find  a  harvest  of  tares.  The  prizes  of 
life  come  to  those  who  have  patiently  planted  the 
good  seed. 

It  is  a  continuous  mystery  and  miracle  how  a 
tiny  seed  placed  in  the  ground  will  come  forth 
later  as  a  flower,  or  a  fruit,  or  a  tree.  How  bound- 
lessly resourceful  was  the  mighty  Creator  who 


36          DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

could  endow  a  handful  of  homely  dirt  and  deposit 
a  microscopic  secret  in  an  unseemly  grain  of 
wheat  or  corn,  and,  each  responding  to  the  other, 
produce  a  food  for  man  which  could  be  mys- 
teriously transmuted  into  intellect,  and  will,  and 
love — all  of  this  because  like  produces  like. 

That  is  a  quaint  Bible  phrase  "the  recompense 
of  reward,"  and  nowhere  is  it  so  expressive  and 
impressive  as  when  the  writer  of  the  Hebrews 
says  of  Moses  that  he  "refused  to  be  called  the 
son  of  Pharaoh's  daughter;  choosing  rather  to 
suffer  affliction  with  the  people  of  God,  than  to 
enjoy  the  pleasures  of  sin  for  a  season;  esteeming 
the  reproach  of  Christ  greater  riches  than  the 
treasures  of  Egypt;  for  he  had  respect  unto  the 
recompense  of  reward." 

Moses  chose  to  sow  the  good  seed  of  fidelity 
to  his  God  rather  than  to  sow  the  seed  of  "the 
pleasures  of  sin  for  a  season,"  for  he  knew  what 
the  harvest  would  be.  0  the  game  of  life  is  too 
soon  over  to  make  a  crucial  blunder  hi  the  spring- 
tune  of  life  when  the  seed  is  sown. 

All  of  us  have  lived  long  enough  to  see 
what  bitter  apples  of  Sodom  are  gathered  from 
bad  seed.  We  have  likewise  lived  long  enough 
to  see  how  those  useful  people  live  to  a  venerable 
and  happy  old  age  who  honor  the  law  of  the  good 
seed  and  the  law  of  inevitable  growth.  There  is 
more  good  seed  hi  the  world  than  bad — the  har- 
vests of  recompense  and  reward  are  greater  than 
the  harvests  of  punishment  and  retribution.  Evil- 


TIME  A  JUST  RETRIBUTOR         37 

doers  are  soon  cut  off,  and  their  names  and 
places  are  hard  to  find,  but  the  meek  shall  inherit 
the  earth. 

An  impending  hour  of  retribution  awaits  any 
man  and  any  set  of  men  who  attempt  to  fight 
against  God,  and  who  endeavor  to  reverse  the 
verdicts  of  history  and  justice.  There  are  right- 
eous judgments  that  must  hi  the  end  prevail. 
Forty-eight  years  ago,  when  the  German  empire 
was  organized,  Bismarck,  the  champion  of  the 
doctrine  of  might,  was  a  rank  materialist.  The 
professors  who  were  suborned  by  the  government 
boldly  announced  that  Germany  would  present  a 
new  religion  to  the  world,  and  that  Christianity, 
weak  and  sentimental,  with  its  devotion  to  the 
doctrines  of  right  and  brotherly  love,  must  be 
destroyed. 

It  is  a  pretty  big  undertaking  for  a  little  man  to 
try  to  blow  out  the  light  of  the  sun,  or  to  dig  a  hole 
hi  which  to  bury  Mont  Blanc,  or  to  stop  a  Niagara 
with  the  palm  of  his  hand,  or  to  bale  out  an  ocean 
with  his  tin  dipper;  but  any  of  these  was  a  more 
possible  undertaking  than  that  a  group  of  arro- 
gant materialists  could  stop  the  progress  of  truth 
and  righteousness.  There  are  some  things  that 
are  as  fundamental  as  is  gravity  to  nature,  but 
nothing  more  so  than  is  the  reach  of  the  human 
soul  after  God — the  filial  love  of  the  human  soul 
for  the  infinite  heavenly  Father.  Atheism  is  the 
absurdest  thing  in  the  universe,  and  it  is  utterly 
repugnant  and  foreign  to  a  normal  soul.  The  arch 


38          DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

prophet  of  the  Bismarckian  era  of  rationalism  was 
Frederick  Nietzsche,  who  went  crazy  trying  to 
press  God  out  of  his  universe.  All  his  writings 
are  like  the  rantings  of  an  erratic  brain  hi  a  mad- 
house. There  is  not  a  scintilla  of  the  spiritual  in  all 
the  utterances  of  his  philosophy. 

I  have  forgotten  which  one  of  the  ancient 
philosophers  it  was  who  said  that  there  was  never 
a  city  founded  without  faith  in  God.  It  was  the 
fantastic  vanity  of  the  Potsdam  premier  that  with 
the  well-organized  shock  troops  of  Prussianism  it 
would  be  easy  to  drive  the  Almighty  from  his 
throne  and  give  the  scepter  to  some  Hohenzollern 
highwayman. 

The  German  empire  was  the  shortest-lived  em- 
pire hi  all  the  history  of  the  carnal  ambitions  of 
man.  The  Berlin  bandits  could  steal  provinces 
from  Denmark  and  France,  and  could  subjugate 
an  emasculated  Austria,  but  right  and  truth  rule 
conjointly  over  an  imperishable  Kingdom,  and 
it  took  just  forty-eight  short  but  tragic  years 
to  utterly  stultify  the  purposes  of  Prussianism 
and  invalidate  the  haughty  presumption  of  Kaiser- 
ism:  "I  have  the  right  to  do  what  I  have  the 
might  to  do." 

Bismarck  failed — he  was  doomed  to  fail.  Icarus 
could  not  explore  the  sun  because  his  wings  were 
of  wax.  Bismarck  could  not  overthrow  the  right 
because  might  has  no  poisoned  arrows  that  will 
reach  up  to  the  habitations  of  God.  The  Ger- 
mans have  always  been  poor  psychologists.  AT- 


TIME  A  JUST  RETRIBUTOR         39 

mies,  and  navies,  and  intrigue,  and  duplicity  are 
strong,  but  spiritual  things  are  invincible. 

By  all  the  laws  of  might  and  excess  of  power 
Prussianism  ought  to  have  succeeded,  but  Bis- 
marck, and  Von  Moltke,  and  Kaiser  Wilhelm  did 
not  reckon  on  God.  With  "Gott  mit  uns"  on 
their  belt  buckles  and  the  devil  of  devils  hi  then* 
hearts  they  quickly  collapsed  when  they  met 
the  hosts  of  the  true  God  on  the  banks  of  the 
sacred  Marne;  and,  to-day,  the  awful  nightmare 
is  ended,  and  "Ichabod"  is  written  across  the 
palaces  of  Junkerism,  for  all  glory  is  departed 
from  a  perfidious  Prussianism,  which,  having  been 
weighed  hi  the  balances,  was  found  wanting. 

Yesterday  the  Kaiser  was  surrounded  by  opu- 
lence and  power,  with  all  of  middle  Europe  hi 
his  grasp  and  with  dreams  of  world  domination; 
the  most  imposing  military  figure  on  the  globe, 
with  courtiers  and  soldiers  to  do  his  bidding; 
with  his  coffers  full  of  gold  and  with  his  guns  and 
Zeppelins  cruelly  terrifying  Paris  and  London — 
only  yesterday. 

To-day,  he  is  a  fugitive.  His  dynasty,  which 
has  stood  for  four  hundred  years,  is  in  ruins.  An 
outraged  world,  with  holy  vengeance,  is  demanding 
his  trial.  He  is  an  outlaw  who  must  expiate  his 
crimes,  for  justice  will  not  be  cheated. 


Ill 

THE  NEW  MANHOOD 


A  fine  story  is  told  of  a  Britisher  who  found  his  soul.  Dur- 
ing a  fierce  engagement  a  German  officer  had  become  impaled 
on  a  savage  barbed-wire  fence  and  he  was  writhing  in  anguish. 
The  guns  were  doing  terrible  work,  but  the  suffering  man  was 
untouched  and  was  crying  out  in  agony.  A  young  British 
officer  saw  the  tragic  spectacle,  and  when  he  could  stand  it  no 
longer,  he  leaped  over  the  top,  and,  in  a  storm  of  shrapnel  and 
shell,  he  released  the  tortured  man,  and  lifting  him  on  his  shoul- 
ders, he  carried  him  toward  the  German  trench.  Suddenly,  in 
response  to  this  supreme  act  of  kindness  and  heroism,  the  firing 
ceased,  for  both  sides  watched  in  amazement.  It  is  further 
related  that  the  commander  of  the  German  trench  came  for- 
ward, and,  taking  an  Iron  Cross  from  his  own  bosom,  he  pinned 
it  on  the  breast  of  the  brave  Britisher. 

The  British  boy  had  found  his  own  soul — it  was  the  soul 
of  true  chivalry — the  soul  of  the  Christ — the  soul  which  will 
make  the  recent  war  the  last  war  in  all  the  history  of  civilization. 

"None  could  tell  me  where  my  soul  might  be, 
I  searched  for  God,  but  he  eluded  me. 

I  sought  out  my  fellow-man 
And  found  all  three." 


CHAPTER 

THE  NEW  MANHOOD 

ONE  evening  after  I  had  had  my  supper  in  the 
Hostess  House  at  Camp  Kearny  I  drew  a  chair 
up  to  the  crackling  log  fire  and  I  found  myself 
beside  a  boy  in  khaki  who  was  intently  reading 
a  book.  I  was  soon  in  conversation  with  him. 
He  was  reading  a  well-written  essay  on  Macbeth, 
and  I  discovered  that  he  had  read  many  of  the 
Shakespearean  dramas,  and  was  refreshing  his 
memory  by  perusing  this  discussion  of  a  brilliant 
Shakespearean  scholar.  I  told  him  that  I  thought 
Hamlet  would  be  a  good  study  for  the  young  sol- 
diers; that  men  of  action  were  needed  to-day 
like  Fortinbras,  who  won  the  victory  and  seized 
the  throne;  and  that  Hamlet,  the  king's  son,  was 
a  pathetic  illustration  of  how  men  failed  to  attain 
their  purposes,  because  they  never  struck  at  the 
right  time,  but  hesitated  and  procrastinated  until 
they  found  themselves  in  ignominious  defeat  and 
disgrace.  He  said  he  would  give  more  attention 
to  Hamlet. 

He  then  said  that  before  he  entered  the  army 
he  was  the  only  support  of  his  mother,  and  that 
he  had  been  deprived  of  the  best  school  advan- 
tages, and  that  he  was  highly  prizing  the  priv- 
ileges which  his  leisure  in  the  army  was  affording 

43 


44          DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

him  for  reading.  I  found  that  he  had  carefully 
read  some  of  Victor  Hugo's  great  works,  and  was 
a  great  admirer  of  the  brilliant  French  writer. 
He  could  talk  about  Les  Miserables  and  Jean 
Valjean,  of  The  Man  Who  Laughs,  and  of  The 
Toilers  of  the  Sea.  This  young  soldier  was  not 
an  exception,  but  he  is  typical  of  many  a  fine 
young  American  who  found  his  soul  in  the  war. 

A  gentleman  who  was  in  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  work  in 
France  says:  "I  have  seen  boys  come  out  of  battles 
made  new  men.  I  have  seen  them  go  into  the 
line  sixteen-year-old  lads  and  come  out  of  the 
trenches  men.  I  saw  a  lad  who  had  gone  through 
the  fighting  in  Belleau  Woods.  I  talked  with 
him  in  the  hospital  at  Paris.  His  face  was  terri- 
bly wounded.  He  was  ugly  to  look  at,  but  when 
I  talked  with  him  I  found  a  soul  as  white  as  a 
lily  and  as  courageous  as  granite. 

"I  may  look  awful,"  he  said,  "but  I'm  a  new 
man  inside.  What  I  saw  out  there  in  the  woods 
made  me  different  somehow.  I  saw  a  friend 
stand  by  a  machine  gun  with  a  whole  platoon  of 
Germans  sweeping  down  on  him,  and  he  never 
flinched.  He  fired  that  old  gun  until  every 
bullet  was  gone  and  his  gun  was  red-hot.  I  was 
lying  on  the  grass,  where  I  could  see  it  all.  I 
saw  them  bayonet  him.  He  fought  to  the  last 
against  fifty  men;  but,  thank  God,  he  died  a 
man;  he  died  an  American!  I  lay  there  and 
cried  to  see  them  kill  him;  but  every  time  I  think 
of  that  fellow  it  makes  me  want  to  be  more  of 


THE  NEW  MANHOOD  45 

a  man.  When  I  get  back  home  I'm  going  to 
give  up  my  life  to  some  kind  of  Christian  service. 
I'm  going  to  do  it  because  I  saw  that  man  die 
so  bravely.  If  he  can  die  like  that,  hi  spite  of 
my  face  I  can  live  like  a  man."1 

Again  this  same  writer  says:  "And  so  it  is 
all  over  France.  As  I  have  worked  in  some 
twenty  hospitals,  from  the  first-aid  dressing  sta- 
tions back  through  the  evacuation  hospitals  to 
the  base  hospitals,  I  have  found  that  the  reaction 
of  wounds  and  suffering  is  always  a  spiritual 
reaction,  and  I  know  as  no  other  thing  that  the 
boys  of  America  are  to  come  back,  wounded  or 
otherwise,  a  better  crowd  of  men  than  when  they 
went  away.  They  are  men  reborn." 

The  cross  and  its  Christ  were  everywhere  hi 
evidence  in  France.  An  American  soldier  recently 
plucked  a  violet  at  the  foot  of  a  demolished  way- 
side cross,  and  then  he  wrote: 

"I  picked  a  violet  in  France, 

Beloved  of  shade  and  dew. 
I  wish  my  idle  hands  had  left 
It  smiling  where  it  grew 

"Beside  a  little  wayside  shrine 

Demolished  in  the  war 
It  steadfastly  proclaimed  its  faith 
That  God  would  quite  restore 

"Each  lovely  work  of  his  that  man 

In  churlish  wrath  destroyed, 
And  that  new  loveliness  would  fill 
Each  aching,  empty  void. 

»W.  L.  Stidger. 


46          DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

"It  was  a  little  violet; 

I  held  it  in  my  hand 
And  marveled  that  its  withering 
Should  make  me  understand."1 

German  frightfulness  destroyed  many  of  the 
crosses,  but  it  thereby  even  more  gloriously  en- 
throned the  Christ. 

And  now  comes  the  beautiful  story  of  a  San 
Bernardino  boy,  who  says  that  one  day  in  France 
he  stepped  into  an  old  church  to  get  a  glimpse 
of  its  classic  beauty  when  a  French  officer  of  the 
army  entered,  accompanied  by  a  single  orderly. 
The  officer  knelt  reverently  and  remained  in 
prayer  for  full  three  quarters  of  an  hour.  The 
California  boy  marveled  at  the  intensity  of  the 
officer's  devotion  and  followed  him  when  he  left 
the  church,  only  to  learn  that  it  was  no  other 
than  General  Foch,  the  masterful  strategist  and 
generalissimo  of  the  Allied  armies. 

General  Ferdinand  Foch  was  born  in  a  little 
town  in  the  Pyrenees,  August  4,  1851.  As  a 
child  he  was  devotional  and  studious  in  his  habits, 
attending  church  and  likewise  school,  and  later 
he  was  sent  to  the  Polytechnic  School  where 
French  artillery  officers  are  trained.  At  twenty- 
three  he  was  a  captain  of  artillery  and  had  al- 
ready acquired  considerable  reputation  as  a 
teacher  of  military  tactics,  and  before  many 
years  was  regarded  as  one  of  the  foremost  author- 
ities in  military  strategy.  In  those  fatal  days  of 

» Victor  C.  Reese. 


THE  NEW  MANHOOD  47 

August,  1914,  he  was  the  general  in  charge  of  the 
Ninth  Army  Corps.  In  the  early  part  of  Sep- 
tember, when  the  German  hordes  were  rushing 
on  toward  Paris,  and  the  French  were  retreat- 
ing in  disorder,  when  the  capital  was  being  moved 
to  Bordeaux,  and  the  fall  of  Paris  seemed  immi- 
nent, Marshal  Joffre,  the  commander-in-chief  of 
the  army,  determined  that  the  savage  Huns 
should  be  stopped — and  he  organized  his  historic 
defense  at  the  Marne.  To  General  Foch,  with 
his  Ninth  Army  Corps,  was  assigned  the  gigantic 
task  of  sternmimg  the  tide  of  the  Prussian's 
fiercest  shock  troops.  Foch  was  crowded  back 
in  spite  of  gallant  resistance,  until  on  Septem- 
ber 9  the  situation  became  most  desperate,  but 
Foch  remained  serene  and  confident,  and  about 
noon  on  that  eventful  day,  with  marvelous  Chris- 
tian fortitude,  refusing  to  acknowledge  defeat, 
he  sent  his  historic  message  to  General  Joffre: 
"My  right  whig  has  been  driven  back;  my  left 
wing  is  crushed;  I  shall  attack  with  my  center. 
Situation  is  excellent."  With  the  help  of  the 
God  of  battles  that  daring  attack  saved  the 
day,  and  turned  the  First  Battle  of  the  Marne 
from  a  dismal  rout  into  one  of  the  great  decisive 
battles  not  only  of  the  war  but  of  all  history. 

The  Prussians  discovered  forces  upon  which 
they  had  not  reckoned  and  fell  back,  and  finally 
broke  and  fled,  and  General  Foch  vindicated  the 
teaching  of  his  classroom  that  "a  battle  won  is 
a  battle  hi  which  one  will  not  admit  oneself  van- 


48          DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

quished.  A  battle  is  lost  which  one  believes  to 
be  lost,  for  battles  are  not  lost  materially." 

After  the  battle,  when  the  Bishop  of  Cahors 
went  to  congratulate  and  thank  the  masterful 
soldier,  General  Foch  reverently  replied:  "Mon- 
seigneur,  do  not  thank  me,  but  Him  to  whom 
victory  alone  belongs!" 

On  September  9,  General  Foch  was  able  to 
turn  back  the  forces  of  Von  Kluck,  many  of 
whom  were  swallowed  up  in  the  dangerous  quick- 
sands of  the  Saint  Gond  marshes;  and  on  that 
September  day  the  second  diabolical  Hun  inva- 
sion was  rebuked,  and  the  conflict  goes  down  into 
history  as  the  Battle  of  the  Marne. 

It  was  after  this  same  battle  that  a  French 
general,  when  asked  how  it  was  possible  for  the 
French  army  to  defeat  the  overwhelming  Hun 
hordes,  answered:  "Miracle!  Miracle!  Our  line 
of  four  Frenchmen  deep  broke  through  a  Ger- 
man line  sixteen  men  deep.  Le  bon  Dieu!  Le 
bon  Dieu!"  ("The  good  God!  The  good  God!") 

Not  since  Garibaldi's  stroke 
Freed  his  land  from  the  Austrian  yoke, 
And  Italy  after  a  thousand  years 
Walked  in  beauty  among  her  peers; 
Not  since  Nelson  followed  the  star 
Of  freedom  to  triumph  at  Trafalgar 
On  the  tossing  floor  of  the  Western  seas; 
No,  not  since  Miltiades 
Fronted  the  Persian  hosts  and  won 
Against  the  tyrant  at  Marathon, 
Has  a  greater  defender  of  liberty 
Stood  and  struck  for  the  cause  than  he, 


THE  NEW  MANHOOD  49 

Whose  right  was  weakened,  whose  left  was  thin, 
Whose  center  was  almost  driven  in, 
But  whose  iron  courage  no  fate  could  crush 
Nor  hinder.    "I  shall  advance,"  said  Foch.1 

A  man  who  was  a  student  in  the  classes  of 
General  Foch  a  dozen  years  ago  in  the  High  War 
School  in  France,  when  the  noble  soldier  was 
lecturing  on  strategy  and  the  conduct  of  battles, 
says  that  the  chief  characteristic  of  Foch  is 
"the  strength  of  his  soul."  "He  believes  that 
battles  are  won  because  of  moral  qualities,"  and 
lost  for  want  of  them.  "He  is  a  devout  man  and 
the  son  of  pious  parents.  His  life  has  been  har- 
monious in  its  calm  studiousness,  in  its  freedom 
from  intrigue,  in  its  broad  and  lofty  outlook." 
Some  time  ago  he  wrote:  "I  approach  the  end 
of  my  life  with  the  conscience  of  a  faithful  servant 
who  reposes  in  the  peace  of  the  Lord.  Faith  in 
life  eternal,  in  a  God  of  goodness  and  compas- 
sion, has  sustained  me  in  the  most  trying  hours. 
Prayer  has  enlightened  my  way."  Foch  is  a 
man  of  God,  a  man  of  soul,  a  man  of  sympathy. 
Neither  Joshua  nor  Gideon  was  more  a  fighter 
of  God's  battles.  The  greatest  words  of  his  mil- 
itary creed  are  "duty"  and  "discipline."  He 
"has  not  only  the  qualities  of  head  and  heart 
for  command,  but  the  sort  of  faith  that  moves 
mountains,  however  blackly  set  in  the  clouds."2 

One  wonders  if  a  willingness  to  surrender  one's 
own  life  that  others  may  live,  and  that  great 

1  Bliss  Carman.  » Atlantic  Monthly,  October,  1918. 


50          DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

principles  and  ideals  may  not  die,  is  not  a  short- 
cut to  finding  one's  own  soul. 

A  soldier  boy,  who  before  the  war  was  an  in- 
mate of  a  reformatory,  to  which  he  was  sent 
because  he  was  an  incorrigible  truant  and  so  bad 
a  boy  that  his  parents  had  given  him  up  in  despair, 
won  a  Victoria  Cross  for  extraordinary  bravery 
in  risking  his  own  life  to  save  the  lives  of  his 
comrades  in  France.  There  was  a  radical  change 
in  the  boy;  he  had  actually  become  a  new 
character. 

When  General  Cadorna  was  retreating  to  a 
new  and  stronger  position,  his  great  Italian  army 
was  saved  through  the  heroic  sacrifices  of  whole 
regiments  of  Italian  troops  who  defended  the 
mountain-top  positions  until  they  were  entirely 
exterminated.  What  an  epic  of  true  heroism 
was  written  in  those  fearful  war  days!  And  how 
many  men  found  their  souls  hi  the  fiery  furnaces 
of  battle! 

Some  years  ago  a  young  man  emigrated  from 
the  Thames  valley  to  Canada  because  he  had  by 
his  misdeeds  utterly  disgraced  his  father,  who 
was  a  distinguished  physician.  .  His  family  never 
expected,  never  wished  to  hear  from  him  again. 
When  the  call  came  to  Canada  for  troops  this 
young  man  joined  the  first  contingent,  determined 
to  show  that  he  had  sincerely  repented,  and  was 
anxious  to  make  good.  His  regiment  was  soon 
in  the  thick  of  the  fight  and  was  the  first  to  be 
exposed  to  the  deadly  gas  attacks.  The  young 


THE  NEW  MANHOOD  51 

man  did  noble  work,  and  besides  defending  a 
perilous  position,  he  was  able  to  save  the  lives 
of  several  of  his  comrades;  and  then  was  severely 
wounded,  but  not  before  he  had  won  his  "Dis- 
tinguished Conduct  Medal."  When  he  was  con- 
valescent he  was  invalided  home  for  a  short 
leave.  When  he  reached  his  home  he  was  not 
expected,  neither  did  his  parents  know  anything 
of  his  honor  and  his  bravery,  and  they  were 
completely  astonished  when  he  appeared  in  his 
Canadian  khaki  uniform  with  his  medal  pinned 
upon  his  coat.  The  boy  had  come  back — he  had 
found  his  soul,  and  with  great  pride  his  parents 
walked  by  his  side  through  the  streets  of  the 
town  where  he  had  once  caused  them  shame. 

God  advances  the  affairs  of  the  moral  world 
by  a  succession  of  divine  impulses  which  respon- 
sive men  endeavor  to  fulfill  in  their  lives.  Every 
epoch  in  history  turns  upon  the  soul  of  some 
brave  man.  Momentum  is  the  mass  plus  the 
velocity.  In  the  moral  universe  momentum  is  the 
man — the  mass,  plus  the  God-purpose — the  veloc- 
ity. Men  who  respond  to  their  high  calls  are 
sustained  by  this  momentum — they  become  the 
product  of  that  power,  and  are  made  strong  by 
it.  Abraham  submitted  to  it,  and  became  the 
father  of  the  faithful;  Moses  was  enabled  "to 
endure  as  seeing  him  who  is  invisible."  Paul 
cried  out,  "What  wilt  thou  have  me  to  do?"  and 
developed  into  the  imperial  apostle;  Luther 
aroused  all  Europe,  and  John  Wesley  claimed 


52          DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

the  world  for  his  parish.  The  Puritans  were 
sustained  by  this  divine  force.  They  sailed  from 
Delft  Haven  one  hundred  and  four  in  number, 
fifty-eight  of  whom  were  graduates  of  Oxford  and 
Cambridge.  During  then*  first  winter  hi  New 
England  fifty  died  from  disease  and  exposure, 
but  when,  hi  the  following  spring,  the  Mayflower 
sailed  for  Europe,  not  one  of  those  dauntless 
heroes  availed  himself  of  the  opportunity  to 
return. 

"What  sought  they  thus  afar? 
Bright  jewels  of  the  mine, 
The  wealth  of  seas,  the  spoils  of  war? 
They  sought  a  faith's  pure  shrine." 

The  operation  of  this  law  of  momentum  in 
the  spiritual  world  justifies  Tennyson's  familiar 
couplet, 

"Yet  I  doubt  not  through  the  ages,  one  increasing  purpose  runs, 
And  the  thoughts  of  men  are  widened  with  the  process  of  the 
suns." 

We  hear  much  in  these  days  of  self-made  men. 
John  Bright,  when  he  heard  that  his  political 
rival,  Disraeli,  was  making  the  personal  claim 
to  be  a  self-made  man,  ironically  remarked, 
"Yes,  he  is  a  self-made  man,  and  he  worships 
his  creator."  But  there  is  a  call  to-day  for  faith- 
made  men.  Men  of  faith  are  men  of  fiber.  Said 
Whittier,  "When  faith  is  lost  the  man  is  dead." 
Men  with  faith  in  self,  in  their  fellows,  hi  then- 
God.  Faith  in  self  makes  a  man  humble;  faith 


THE  NEW  MANHOOD  53 

in  his  fellows  makes  him  sympathetic;  faith  in 
God  makes  him  a  martyr.    Wordsworth  sings 

"Of  one  in  whom  persuasion  and  belief 
Had  ripened  into  faith,  and  faith  became 
A  passionate  intuition." 

Faith-made  men  are  men  of  obedience  and 
courage.  Courage  is  a  moral  quality,  as  is  ob- 
served in  its  Latin  derivation.  Courage  to  push 
and  be  a  man,  and  not  wait  for  a  pull  and  be  a 
manikin.  Courage  to  give  as  well  as  to  get; 
to  get  in  order  to  give.  Courage  to  give  up. 

Faith-made  men  are  God's  prompt  messengers. 
Men  who  step  out  into  the  dark,  over  a  brink  if 
it  is  necessary,  and  trust  Almighty  God  to  supply 
a  landing  place  for  then*  feet.  Such  faith-made 
men  were  Francis  of  Assisi,  bearing  about  in  his 
body  the  marks  of  his  Lord's  sufferings;  Gari- 
baldi shouting  to  the  patriots  of  Italy,  "I  will 
return,  I  will  return!"  Benito  Juarez,  the  little 
Indian,  the  liberator  of  Mexico;  and  John  Brown, 
who  replied  to  the  messenger,  "Tell  the  General 
when  he  wants  me  to  fight,  to  say  so;  no  other 
command  shall  I  obey."  If  the  dome  of  John 
Brown's  intellect  had  been  as  lofty  as  his  heart 
was  deep,  there  would  have  been  a  prompter 
issue  of  the  principles  which  he  espoused;  he  was 
the  John  the  Baptist  of  freedom.  Wendell  Phil- 
lips heard  the  voice  of  God  in  the  loving  command 
of  his  wife,  "You  must  take  up  the  cause  of  the 
slave."  Such  a  faith-made  woman  was  Harriet 


54          DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

Beecher  Stowe,  who  persistently  declared  con- 
cerning her  epoch-making  book,  "God  wrote  it." 

And  such  a  faith-made  man  was  Ulysses  S. 
Grant,  with  his  shibboleth  of  "unconditional 
surrender,"  hurrying  with  the  speed  and  bril- 
liancy of  a  comet  from  the  victories  of  Vicksburg 
to  the  surrender  of  Appomattox.  What  shall 
be  said  of  William  McKinley,  who,  when  the 
final  decision  was  to  be  made  concerning  the 
Philippines,  which  had  suddenly  fallen  into  the 
lap  of  this  republic,  said:  "I  walked  the  floor  of 
the  White  House  night  after  night  until  mid- 
night, and  then  went  down  on  my  knees  and 
asked  God  for  light  and  guidance;  and  it  came 
to  me  that  there  was  nothing  left  for  us  to  do 
but  to  take  the  Islands,  educate  the  Filipinos, 
and  uplift  and  civilize  and  Christianize  them, 
and,  by  God's  grace,  do  the  best  we  could  for 
them." 

There  was  a  boy  hi  the  Naval  Reserve  who 
was  a  stoker  on  a  ship,  and  the  boy's  father  is 
at  the  head  of  one  of  the  large  bookstores  in 
New  York  city.  The  boy  was  anxious  to  go  into 
the  army,  but  his  eyes  were  bad,  and  so  he  en- 
listed as  a  stoker,  where  good  eyes  were  not  needed. 
And  there  he  served  his  country  in  the  hold  of 
a  ship  with  no  chance  to  fight  back,  but  doing 
his  part  to  keep  the  ship  moving;  "with  none  to 
see  what  is  going  on,  and  with  every  chance  of 
being  drowned  like  a  rat  if  the  ship  goes  down." 
He  heard  the  call  of  God  and  duty. 


THE  NEW  MANHOOD  55 

It  was  said  by  John  Milton  long  since  that 
"Great  souls  are  the  white  sheaves  that  this 
world  should  wave  back  to  the  God  of  summer." 

On  a  recent  Sunday  night  after  the  church 
service  a  soldier  hi  khaki  came  forward  to  the 
chancel.  In  my  question  box  I  had  attempted 
to  answer  the  question  "Which  is  the  finest  line 
in  the  English  language?"  and  this  soldier  said 
to  me,  "What  do  you  think  of  this  as  among 
the  best  things  that  have  been  written?" — and 
he  quoted  those  rarely  beautiful  lines  from 
Tennyson's  Locksley  Hall, 

"Love  took  up  the  harp  of  life, 

And  smote  on  all  the  chords  with  might, 
Smote  the  chord  of  self,  that,  trembling, 
Passed  in  music  out  of  sight." 

And  I  replied,  "That  is  magnificent — most 
beautiful.  I  ought  to  have  quoted  it  as  my 
personal  choice";  and  there  was  a  rare  glow  in 
the  eyes  of  that  fine  young  officer  as  if  in  the 
experiences  of  war  he  had  already  lost  self  out 
of  his  own  growing  soul. 

Men  are  looking  to  God  in  these  moments  of 
world  crisis  as  never  before;  and  it  was  not  by 
any  means  an  accident  that  a  man  trained  in  a 
Christian  home  should  be  at  the  head  of  the 
American  forces  hi  France;  and  that  a  son  of 
the  manse  should  be  the  commander-in-chief  of 
the  army  and  the  honored  President  of  the  United 
States;  and  that  General  Foch  should  be  a  devout 


56          DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

Christian;  and  that  Sir  Douglas  Haig  should  be 
a  man  of  unusual  piety.  Of  General  Haig  it  is 
said  that  he  never  omitted  attending  divine  service 
at  the  front,  and  is  like  the  lamented  Gladstone 
in  his  study  of  theology,  reading  the  French  and 
German  as  readily  as  he  does  the  English.  Dur- 
ing the  darkest  hours  of  the  German  drive,  at 
the  close  of  a  chaplain's  service  on  Sunday  morn- 
ing, General  Haig  went  forward  and  said  to  the 
minister,  "Remember,  the  battle  is  not  ours 
but  God's." 

During  one  of  the  battles  in  France  a  soldier 
was  found  entangled  in  a  German  barbed-wire, 
and  when  his  comrades  attempted  to  carry  him, 
after  they  had  released  him  from  his  position  of 
jeopardy,  it  seemed  that  they  would  almost 
pull  him  to  pieces.  He  begged  his  rescuers  to 
put  him  out  of  misery,  but  Sergeant  Rose  threw 
himself  on  the  ground  and  made  a  human  sledge 
out  of  himself,  and  insisted  that  they  should 
lay  the  wounded  man  upon  him — which  was  done. 
They  dragged  these  two  men  back  over  two 
hundred  yards  of  No  Man's  Land,  through  the 
broken  wire  and  over  ground  that  was  strewn 
with  broken  shells. 

They  were  all  so  anxious  to  get  the  wounded 
man  to  a  place  of  safety  and  treatment  that 
they  forgot  the  man  underneath.  When  they 
reached  the  trenches  they  found  that  the  brave 
sergeant  was  nearly  as  badly  off  as  his  burden. 
His  hands  and  face  and  body  were  painfully 


THE  NEW  MANHOOD  57 

torn,  and  he  had  suffered  frightfully,  but  never 
once  had  he  said,  "Go  slow,"  or  "Wait  a  bit." 
As  the  late  Captain  Hugh  Knyvett,  the  Anzac 
scout,  says,  "Such  is  the  stuff  our  men  are  made 
of." 

In  the  Methodist  history  of  Central  Ohio  there 
is  a  chapter  which  reads  as  if  it  might  have  been 
taken  bodily  from  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles.  There 
came  to  the  town  of  Zanesville  from  then  faraway 
New  England,  a  young  man  of  fine  presence  and 
excellent  ability,  who  said  that  he  was  a  min- 
ister of  the  gospel.  He  was  cordially  received  by 
the  people  and  made  a  remarkable  stir  as  he  was 
invited  to  preach  hi  the  pulpits.  But  after  a 
few  months  he  brought  disgrace  upon  the  churches 
because  of  his  association  with  the  drinking  and 
dissipated  men  of  the  place,  and  it  was  then 
learned  that  he  had  perpetrated  what  he  declared 
was  a  practical  joke  on  the  church  people,  for  he 
was  not  only  not  a  Christian,  but  in  the  place 
from  which  he  came  he  had  been  a  wild  and 
reckless  young  man  and  a  ringleader  among  the 
roughs  about  the  town. 

When  the  true  character  of  the  young  man 
was  discovered  he  was  of  course  ostracized  by 
those  who  had  been  the  victims  of  his  clever 
but  unprincipled  imposition,  and  he  became 
very  bitter  against  the  church.  He  began  the 
practice  of  law,  and  soon  became  recognized  as 
one  of  the  most  brilliant  men  at  the  bar  of  Mus- 
kingum  County.  Later  he  married  a  beautiful 


58          DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

young  woman,  but  his  antipathy  for  the  church 
increased  with  his  prosperity,  until,  at  length  a 
baby  came  to  his  home,  and  the  spirit  of  the 
man  was  softened  and  sweetened  as  people 
noticed  his  tender  devotion  to  the  baby  and  her 
mother.  But  one  day,  just  as  the  baby  was  learn- 
ing to  toddle  out  to  meet  him  and  call  him 
"Daddy,"  it  sickened  and  died.  The  father's 
heart  was  broken,  and  his  life  suddenly  changed. 
He  publicly  confessed  his  sins  and  begged  the 
forgiveness  of  the  people  of  Zanesville,  and  be- 
came a  zealous  member  of  the  church.  Later  he 
was  received  into  the  ministry  of  the  Methodist 
Church,  and  at  the  General  Conference  of  1844  he 
was  elected  a  bishop  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church.  He  made  a  large  place  for  himself  in  the 
activities  of  the  church,  as  a  versatile  writer  and  bril- 
liant preacher  and  administrator,  and  was  noted 
for  his  holy  and  winsome  character.  He  suffered 
great  bodily  infirmities  during  the  last  years  of 
his  life,  and  as  he  bade  a  final  farewell  to  the 
things  and  friends  of  earth,  he  exultingly  cried, 
"0  wondrous,  wondrous,  wondrous  love!"  and 
Bishop  Leonidas  L.  Hamline  went  up  to  God. 

A  new  creature.  A  new  creature  in  Christ 
Jesus!  Old  things  had  passed  away — truly  all 
things  had  become  new! 

That  is  the  New  Manhood. 


IV 
THE  NEW  DUTY 


A  man  cannot  choose  his  duties. — George  Eliot. 

The  path  of  duty  lies  in  what  is  near,  and  men  seek  for  it  in 
what  is  remote;  the  work  of  duty  lies  in  what  is  easy,  and  men 
seek  for  it  in  what  is  difficult — Mencius. 

Duty  is  a  power  which  rises  with  us  in  the  morning,  and 
goes  to  rest  with  us  at  night.  It  is  coextensive  with  the  action 
of  our  intelligence.  It  is  the  shadow  which  cleaves  to  us,  go 
where  we  will,  and  which  only  leaves  us  when  we  leave  the 
light  of  life. — Gladstone. 


CHAPTER  IV 
THE  NEW  DUTY 

IN  the  New  Day  is  there  anything  more  val- 
uable than  life?  So  problematical,  and  versatile, 
and  profound,  and  simple,  and  adventurous,  and 
full  of  surprises  is  life — human  life — that  in  our 
thinking  we  come  back  to  it  if  perchance  we  shall 
be  able  to  find  out  some  of  its  many  secrets  and 
solve  some  of  its  mysteries. 

If  we  seek  from  others  a  definition  of  life,  we 
are  more  in  the  labyrinth  than  when  we  began, 
for  one  will  say  that  life  is  a  battle,  another  that 
it  is  a  bubble;  one  that  it  is  a  jest,  another  that 
it  is  a  cheat;  one  that  it  is  a  short  summer,  another 
that  it  is  like  a  winter's  day;  one  that  it  is  but 
a  span,  another  that  it  is  only  a  walking  shadow; 
one  that  it  is  best  when  it  is  ended,  another 
when  it  is  begun;  one  that  it  is  a  prickly  thorn, 
another  that  it  is  a  summer  rose;  one  that  it  is 
sweet,  another  that  it  is  bitter;  one  that  it  is  a 
horrid  grind,  another  that  it  is  a  highway  for 
angels;  one  that  it  is  a  lie,  another  that  it  is  love. 

Life  is  so  soon  over  that  it  is  a  tragic  pity  to 
miss  the  path.  There  are  so  many  new  endeavors 
to  enjoy;  there  is  so  much  of  divinity  to  be  re- 
vealed; there  is  so  much  of  humanity  to  be  loved 
and  served;  there  are  so  many  thought  realms  to 

61 


62          DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

be  entered;  so  many  alluring  enchantments;  so 
many  holy  friendships;  so  many  big  tasks  to 
awaken  our  zeal  and  tax  our  humble  talents. 
But  it  is  so  soon  over!  If  we  would  find  out  its 
fascinating  secret,  we  must  be  about  it.  It  is 
not  something  we  choose,  or  desire,  or  discover; 
it  is  a  gift,  a  gift  of  God.  We  are  the  custodians 
of  this  supernal  thing  called  life;  it  is  divine, 
for  the  soul  is  God's  image.  Human  life  is  so 
soon  over;  and  if  we  dally  in  primrose  paths,  it 
will  be  too  late  when  we  find  again  the  way  of 
life.  Yes,  it  is  a  gift.  Next  to  his  only  begotten 
Son,  our  Redeemer,  it  is  God's  greatest  gift  to 
the  world.  So  profound  is  the  secret  of  the 
origin  of  life  that  all  the  wise  men  in  all  of  their 
laboratories  have  not  been  able  to  produce  by 
experimentation  even  the  lowest  forms  of  life. 
It  is  a  gift  direct  from  the  hand  of  the  Infinite. 

Is  anything  more  valuable  than  life?  "He 
that  loseth  his  life  for  my  sake  shall  find  it." 
However  strange  this  paradox  may  be,  we  get 
by  giving,  we  find  by  losing,  and  we  win  by  sur- 
render. The  best  and  most  triumphant  thing 
which  we  can  do  with  our  lives  is  often  to  sur- 
render them.  Life  is  not  measured  by  the  shadow 
on  the  dial,  but  by  heart  throbs;  not  by  days, 
but  by  deeds.  The  youth  Nathan  Hale  still 
lives  into  the  third  century  one  of  the  best- 
known  young  men  in  American  history  because  as  a 
boy  in  his  twenties  he  regretted  he  had  but  one 
life  to  give  for  his  country — and  he  gave  it. 


THE  NEW  DUTY  63 

Life  is  worth  only  what  it  will  purchase  in 
the  open  market  of  achievement  and  victory. 
Those  fifty  sailor  boys  who  went  down  with  the 
sinking  of  the  Maine  in  Cuban  waters  have 
multiplied  then*  influence  infinitely  beyond  what 
they  could  have  accomplished  if  they  had  pre- 
ferred quiet  lives  in  quiet  places  and  had  reached 
even  honorable  old  age.  "Remember  the  Alamo!" 
"Remember  the  Maine!"  have  aroused  the  pa- 
triotism of  the  years;  and  one  day  when  a  das- 
tardly submarine  sent  sixty-seven  of  our  soldier 
boys  to  the  bottom  of  the  Atlantic,  another 
tocsin  was  added  which  rallied  the  hosts  of  Amer- 
ican youth  and  swept  Junkerism  into  shameless 
oblivion,  "Remember  the  Antilles!"  "Remember 
the  Antilles!" 

We  hear  brave  Colonel  Travis  saying  once  more 
at  the  Alamo,  "I  will  never  retreat  or  surrender. 
Take  good  care  of  my  motherless  boy;  if  I  live, 
I  will  love  him  and  protect  him,  but  if  I  die  he 
will  have  the  honor  of  knowing  that  his  father 
laid  down  his  life  for  his  country." 

Yes,  there  are  many  things  more  valuable  than 
life. 

Truth  is  more  valuable  than  life.  Every  great 
truth  which  we  possess  to-day  somebody  died 
for  it.  There  is  not  a  discovery  hi  science,  and 
not  a  continent  or  an  island,  and  not  a  beautiful 
shore  richly  embroidered  with  civilization's  best 
gifts,  for  which  men  have  not  suffered  and  died. 
Some  of  us  never  can  understand  the  pioneer — 


64          DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

the  pathfinder,  who  goes  before  and  opens  up 
the  way.  Why  should  any  man  take  his  life  in 
his  hand  and  travel  afar,  exposed  to  wild  beasts, 
and  wild  streams,  and  wild  men,  and  wild  storms? 
Every  pathway  of  progress  has  been  paved  with 
the  bleached  bones  of  those  who  did  not  arrive. 
In  the  early  days  the  graves  of  the  fallen  marked 
the  trail  of  those  who  journeyed  westward  over 
the  desert  waste  and  the  mountains  of  rock;  but 
graves  have  always  been  milestones  in  the  progress 
of  truth.  Those  who  die  for  the  truth  have  won 
the  greatest  victories.  In  the  sacrament  of  blood 
truth  has  been  made  immortal.  The  martyrs  are 
the  makers  of  history.  But  some  of  us  can  never 
understand  the  martyr.  Why  should  a  man  die 
for  a  truth  which  he  shall  never  himself  enjoy? 
Why  should  a  man  plant  a  tree  under  whose  shade 
he  shall  never  recline?  I  will  tell  you.  When, 
even  a  humble  man  comes  into  the  fullness  of 
his  life  he  understands  that,  obscure  though  he 
may  be,  he  is  responsible  to  God  and  man  for 
his  life.  It  is  not  egotism  which  makes  a  humble 
man  feel  that  he  must  do  his  part  and  fill  his 
place  just  as  if  he  were  great  among  the  great- 
est. He  is  impelled  by  holy  impulses  of  honor 
and  conviction  and  courage. 

If  he  be  noble,  the  nobleness  that  is  within  him 
resents  the  soft  impeachment  that  he  is  inverte- 
brate and  cowardly.  Personality  is  the  effort  of 
the  individual  to  hold  his  own  place  in  the  throngs 
of  men  about  him.  It  is  the  individual  who 


THE  NEW  DUTY  65 

counts.  There  can  be  no  solidarity  in  society 
unless  we  reckon  with  the  multitudes  as  indi- 
viduals. 

"A  people  is  but  the  attempt  of  many 
To  rise  to  the  complete  life  of  one; 
And  those  who  live  as  models  for  the  mass 
Are  singly  of  more  value  than  they  all."1 

Christ  came  to  honor  personality.  His  greatest 
utterances  were  to  individuals.  It  was  to  Nico- 
demus  that  he  said,  "Ye  must  be  born  again," 
and  to  the  woman  at  the  well  that  he  said  "God 
is  a  Spirit:  and  they  that  worship  him  must 
worship  him  in  spirit  and  in  truth,"  and  to  Peter, 
"I  have  prayed  for  thee  that  thy  faith  fail  not," 
and  to  Saul  of  Tarsus,  "It  is  hard  for  thee  to 
kick  against  the  pricks."  It  is  the  single  man 
standing  firmly  by  the  truth  that  is  of  "more 
value  than  they  all." 

Our  convictions  are  of  more  value  than  our 
life.  The  bird  is  of  more  value  than  the  cage. 
The  gold  is  of  more  value  than  the  quartz.  The 
jewel  is  of  more  value  than  its  setting.  The  music 
is  more  valuable  than  the  instrument.  The 
thought  is  more  valuable  than  the  brain.  Our 
convictions  are  so  involved  in  our  character 
that  if  a  man  is  not  true  to  his  convictions  he 
betrays  his  own  character;  and  he  is  the  most 
despicable  of  Judases  who  is  a  traitor  to  himself. 
They  who  are  not  true  to  their  convictions  of 

1  Robert  Browning. 


66          DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

right  are  abettors  of  the  wrong — conspirators 
against  the  truth. 

If  a  man  is  not  taller  from  his  shoulders  up 
than  from  his  shoulders  down  he  belongs  not 
to  the  race  of  men,  but  to  the  age  of  the  ptero- 
dactyls. The  difference  between  animals  and  men 
is  in  the  size  of  then*  heads  and  amplitude  of 
their  brains. 

The  right  is  more  valuable  than  life.  There 
would  be  no  life  if  there  were  no  right.  When 
the  right  is  gone  men  would  soon  devour  and 
destroy  each  other.  "Might  is  right,"  "Force 
is  right,"  "War  is  beautiful,"  "Weakness  is  a 
crime,"  "Hate  your  enemies";  were  all  the  wicked 
lies  of  Prussianism.  If  there  were  none  to  stand 
up  for  the  immortal  truths  that  "Right  is  might," 
and  "The  strong  ought  bear  the  infirmities  of 
the  weak,"  and  "Love  your  enemies,"  and  "The 
meek  shall  inherit  the  earth,"  the  world  would 
soon  revert  to  the  jungle,  because  the  law  of 
force  is  the  law  of  the  jungle,  and  the  earth 
would  ere  long  be  the  habitation  of  human  brutes 
who  would  soon  tear  each  other  to  shreds,  and 
human  life  would  become  extinct. 

I  love  the  man  who  foresees  the  final  triumph 
of  the  right  and  believes  that  we  are  not  fighting 
a  losing  battle;  that  Christ  will  reign  until  he 
shall  have  put  all  enemies  under  his  feet;  and  I 
am  sorry  for  those  people  who  keep  their  eyes 
always  on  the  ground  and  judge  of  the  big  world 
by  the  narrow  boundaries  of  the  little  circle  of 


THE  NEW  DUTY  67 

their  ground  view.  Horizon!  God's  in  his 
heaven,  all  must  come  right  with  the  world. 
We  should  cease  wailing  about  the  world  getting 
worse  and  rejoice  in  the  triumphs  of  the  past 
and  of  the  mightier  conquests  of  the  future.  If 
the  world  is  getting  worse,  it  is  a  stultification 
of  the  spirit  of  the  gospel  and  a  denial  of  the 
promises  of  Christ. 

I  love  the  man  who  has  faith  enough  to  sing 
with  Browning: 

"There  shall  never  be  one  lost  good!    What  was  shall  live  as 

before; 
The  evil  is  null,  is  nought  but  silence  implying  sound." 

"It's  wiser  being  good  than  bad, 

It's  safer  being  meek  than  fierce, 
It's  fitter  being  sane  than  mad, 

My  own  hope  is  a  sun  that  will  pierce 
The  thickest  cloud  earth  ever  stretched; 

That  after  Last  returns  the  First, 
Though  a  wide  compass  round  be  fetched; 

That  what  began  best  can't  end  worst, 

Nor  what  God  blessed  once  prove  accurst."1 

Let  the  tongues  of  the  prophets  of  despair  be 
dumb.  Let  the  singer  of  the  morning  fill  the 
world  with  cheerful  melodies.  So  long  as  men 
will  fight  for  the  right  the  right  will  prevail. 
Character  is  the  foundation  of  conviction.  When 
we  bring  up  our  boys  in  the  principles  of  truth 
as  the  testing  time  comes  we  cannot  keep  them 
out  of  the  battle  of  righteousness. 

These  boys  of  ours  heard  the  call  of  patriotism 

1  Robert  Browning. 


68          DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

and  religion,  and  because  they  have  been  trained 
in  manliness  they  answered,  "Here!"  Patriotism 
is  more  valuable  than  life.  What  is  life  worth 
to  a  citizen  if  he  lives  and  his  country  fails? 

Our  Puritan  fathers  and  mothers — right,  con- 
viction, character  were  more  valuable  to  them 
than  life.  The  best  we  have  hi  our  land  to-day 
we  have  received  from  them. 

It  was  a  bleak  December  morning  that  the 
Mayflower  dropped  its  anchor  hi  the  icy  waters 
of  Plymouth  harbor.  They  must  effect  a  hasty 
landing,  for  there  is  much  sickness  on  the  little 
ship.  "Famine  has  clambered  up  over  the  side 
of  the  ship,  and  holds  the  tiller,  and  death  paces 
back  and  forth  as  if  in  command."  The  men 
reach  the  shore,  but  "all  that  dreary  December 
day,  while  it  snowed  and  sleeted  and  froze  and 
blew,  they  prayed  and  sang  and  walked  back 
and  forth  to  keep  warm,  wearing  a  path  through 
the  deep  snow,  not  stopping  so  much  as  to  build 
a  fire  until  six  o'clock  at  night,  for  it  is  God's 
holy  Sabbath  day.  They  can  die  if  need  be, 
but  they  cannot  violate  God's  holy  ordinance."1 

Duty  is  more  valuable  than  life.  There  is  a 
word  sweeter  than  "duty,"  but  none  that  is 
stronger.  "Duty"  is  the  most  stalwart  word  in 
our  vocabulary.  The  dynamo  packed  away  in 
the  word  "duty"  is  "ought";  and  a  scholar  says 
that  the  word  "ought"  is  a  contraction  of  the 
sterling  phrase,  "We  owe  it."  The  best  meaning 

»Biahop  C.  H.  Fowler. 


THE  NEW  DUTY  69 

then  of  duty  is  "We  owe  it."  Duty  means  obli- 
gation, and  the  more  a  man  is  a  man  the  more 
is  he  determined  to  pay  his  debts.  Duty  is  dis- 
charging our  obligation  to  those  who  have  pre- 
ceded us,  that  we  may  be  a  blessing  to  those  who 
shall  follow  us.  A  clever  woman  wrote: 

"I  slept  and  dreamed  that  life  was  Beauty; 

I  awoke  and  found  that  life  was  Duty, 
Was  thy  dream  then  a  shadowy  lie? 

Toil  on,  poor  heart,  unceasingly, 
And  thou  shalt  find  thy  dream  to  be 

A  truth  and  noonday  light  to  thee."1 

Duty  gives  the  momentum  that  arrives.  Eng- 
land expected  every  man  to  do  his  duty  at  Trafal- 
gar Cape.  America  expects  every  citizen  to  do 
his  duty  anywhere,  and  God  places  duty  before 
every  person  as  a  condition  of  character,  achieve- 
ment, and  heaven.  Moses  and  Paul  responded 
to  the  call  of  duty  and  are  the  greatest  names 
hi  all  history.  Daniel  and  Joseph  did  their  duty, 
and  through  pits  and  prisons  and  lions'  dens 
ascended  to  powerful  premierships.  Samson  and 
Absalom  lost  the  path  of  duty  and  reached  the 
disgrace  of  ignominious  defeat  and  the  prison 
house  hi  Gaza.  Enoch  and  Elijah  did  their  duty 
and  were  not  found  after  they  had  walked  and 
fought  for  God,  because  God  took  them.  Mary 
the  Virgin  mother  and  Mary  the  sister  of  Laz- 
arus did  their  duty,  and  the  mother  is  the  most 
exquisitely  honored  woman  in  the  world,  and  the 

>  Ellen  S.  Hooper. 


70          DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

fame  of  the  sister  is  spread  wherever  the  gospel 
is  preached.  Stephen  did  his  duty  and  went  to 
glorious  martyrdom;  and  the  beloved  John  did 
his  duty  and  in  blissful  old  age  beheld  the  radiant 
revelations  of  Patmos.  Judas  failed  of  his  duty 
and  hurried  himself  into  the  ignominy  of  the 
suicide. 

John  Huss  did  his  duty  and  was  rewarded  with 
victorious  death.  Martin  Luther  did  his  duty 
a  hundred  and  thirty  years  later  and  was  rewarded 
with  victorious  life.  John  Wesley  did  his  duty, 
and,  crowded  out  of  the  church  where  he  had 
been  his  father's  curate,  he  claimed  the  world 
as  his  parish.  Savonarola  did  his  duty,  and  he 
made  the  De'  Medici  tremble  on  their  tottering 
thrones  and  rebuked  wickedness  in  high  places, 
and  hastened  the  millennium  by  thousands  of 
years.  Of  course  they  burned  him  at  the  stake 
after  he  had  first  been  strangled  by  Pope  Alex- 
ander VI.  After  his  martyrdom  the  people 
kissed  the  very  stones  in  the  plaza  where  he  had 
been  burned,  and  the  authorities  ordered  the 
erection  of  a  massive  marble  fountain  to  conceal 
the  spot,  but  the  people  on  the  anniversary  day 
of  his  death  bank  the  plaza  high  with  beautiful 
flowers  in  memory  of  the  bravest  servant  of 
Christ  who  has  lived  in  modern  times.  "Duty" 
was  his  magic  word.  Savonarola  Girolamo! 
Duty!  Duty! 

Abraham  Lincoln,  in  immortal  words  familiar 
to  all,  said:  "Let  us  have  faith  that  right  makes 


THE  NEW  DUTY  71 

might,  and  in  that  faith  let  us  to  the  end  dare 
to  do  our  duty  as  we  understand  it." 

Robert  E.  Lee,  in  an  affectionate  letter  to  his 
son,  cited  the  circumstances  in  the  State  of 
Connecticut,  when  on  that  historic  Dark  Day  a 
timid  legislator  arose,  and  expressing  the  fear 
that  the  Day  of  Judgment  was  at  hand,  suggested 
an  adjournment.  Whereupon  that  fine  old  stal- 
wart, Davenport,  promptly  declared,  that  if  it 
were  the  Day  of  Judgment  approaching,  he  wished 
to  be  found  at  his  post  of  duty;  and  moved  that 
the  candles  be  brought  in.  General  Lee  wrote, 
"My  son,  'duty'  is  the  sublimest  word  in  our 
language.  Do  your  duty  at  all  times  like  the 
old  Puritan.  You  can  do  no  more;  you  should 
not  wish  to  do  less." 

We  have  just  passed  the  one  hundred  and 
thirteenth  anniversary  of  the  Battle  of  Trafalgar. 
It  was  at  that  epochal  contest  that  Admiral 
Horatio  Nelson  shouted  to  his  men,  "England 
expects  every  man  to  do  his  duty!"  He  was 
mortally  wounded  in  that  fierce  engagement,  and 
the  last  words  of  the  dying  commander  were, 
"Thank  God,  I  have  done  my  duty!" 

At  the  famous  battle  of  Allatoona,  General 
Corse  was  in  command  of  the  fortifications. 
General  Sherman  signaled  to  him,  "Hold  the 
fort,  for  I  am  coming!"  Somebody  asked  Sherman 
if  Corse  would  do  it.  Whereupon  "Uncle  Billie" 
replied:  "He  will  hold  out.  I  know  the  man!" 
and  General  Corse  did  hold  out,  though  a  cruel 


72          DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

ball  carried  away  his  right  ear  and  his  cheek  bone. 

The  path  of  duty  is  always  the  path  of  glory 
and  of  God.  The  man  who  is  about  his  duty 
is  too  busy  to  be  afraid  of  God  or  man,  of  good 
or  evil,  of  life  or  death.  0  it  is  tremendous  to 
feel  the  throb  and  thrill  of  impelling,  compulsory 
duty.  Duty  is  perspective.  Duty  is  initiative. 
Duty  is  destination.  Duty  is  divinity.  Duty  is 
partnership  with  God. 

Duty  is  more  valuable  than  life. 

The  word  that  is  sweeter  than  "duty,"  and 
equally  as  strong,  is  "love" — and  love  is  more 
valuable  than  life.  Love  is  God;  God  is  love. 
Every  giant  soul  who  reaches  altitudes  of  godli- 
ness is  a  man  of  love.  Savonarola,  with  all  of 
his  leonine  strength  and  his  vigorous  assaults 
upon  evil,  was  a  lovable  man.  Luther  was  a 
lovable  man.  Wesley  was  a  lovable  man.  Might 
of  mind  and  conviction  and  arm  are  not  incon- 
sistent with  tender  affection.  Wellington  •  and 
Grant  and  Sherman  and  Lee  and  Stonewall 
Jackson  were  lovable  men,  and  so  are  Pershing 
and  Foch. 

Abraham  Lincoln,  the  most-abused  and  best- 
loved  man  in  American  history,  the  strongest 
man  in  courage  and  personality  which  our  age 
has  produced,  was  so  lovable  a  man  that  his 
neighbors  forgot  his  last  name  and  called  him 
"Abe" — "Honest  Abe."  So  tender  was  his  heart 
of  love  that  he  nearly  demoralized  the  discipline 
in  the  army  by  pardoning  many  of  the  offenders. 


THE  NEW  DUTY  73 

We  have  not  forgotten  how  one  evening  he  urged 
his  friend  Joshua  Speed  to  stay  all  night  with 
him,  saying,  "This  is  Thursday  night,  and  to- 
morrow is  execution  day  hi  the  army,  and  I 
never  sleep  any  on  Thursday  night."  There  is 
some  criticism  of  George  Gray  Bernard's  statue 
of  Lincoln  which  has  been  dedicated  hi  Cin- 
cinnati, and  a  replica  of  which  is  to  be  placed 
beside  that  of  Cromwell  in  England.  But  Lincoln 
is  the  despair  of  the  sculptor  as  he  is  of  the  painter 
and  poet.  So  marvelous  was  the  divinity  of 
this  unique  man  that  neither  marble,  nor  canvas, 
nor  eloquence,  nor  all  of  these  combined  can  give 
to  the  world  the  true  Lincoln;  but  love  can  make 
the  real  Lincoln  live  in  each  succeeding  genera- 
tion; and  as  men  love  more  and  the  brotherhood 
becomes  more  and  more  real,  Lincoln  will  be  better 
understood.  If  we  would  know  the  height  and 
beauty  of  a  mountain,  we  must  have  a  long 
perspective  and  a  lofty  point  of  view.  And  so 
as  men  ascend  into  nobler  manliness  they  will 
know  better  this  manliest  of  men. 

Mary's  alabaster  box  was  prompted  by  love, 
though  it  was  filled  with  fragrant  ointment. 
The  world  is  waiting  to-day  for  alabaster  boxes 
of  love  whose  perfume  shall  fill  the  whole  earth. 

Love  is  the  attribute  of  Deity,  for  God  is  love. 
To  the  extent  that  we  have  love,  we  possess  the 
divine  nature.  Love  is  the  mainspring  of  civiliza- 
tion. Love  beats  swords  into  plowshares  and 
spears  into  priming  hooks.  Civilization  is  the 


74          DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

increase  of  brotherhood.  Love  establishes  the 
parliament  of  man;  it  is  the  fulfillment  of  the  law. 
Love  is  strength;  it  is  a  token  of  refinement. 
Cruelty,  selfishness,  and  bestiality  go  out  when 
love  comes  in. 

I  think  perhaps  the  most  pitiful  line  in  all 
English  literature  is  found  in  the  diary  of  Carlyle. 
He  was  often  harsh  in  his  disposition  and  was 
too  busy  to  be  thoughtful.  He  was  not  a  misan- 
thrope, but  he  was  a  sort  of  literary  surgeon  who 
saw  the  deformities  of  the  society  of  the  day 
in  which  he  lived,  and  his  pen  was  usually  a  sharp 
scalpel  with  which  he  was  busy  performing 
operations  with  the  hope  of  improving  the  con- 
dition of  the  patient.  After  his  wife's  death  he 
wrote:  "0  if  I  could  but  see  her  once  more,  were 
it  but  for  five  minutes,  to  let  her  know  that  I 
always  loved  her  through  it  all!  She  never  did 
know  it — never."  Jane  Carlyle  was  a  brilliant 
and  beautiful  woman,  and  the  bitterness  of  her 
disposition  would  probably  never  have  gained 
the  ascendency  if  her  husband's  alabaster  boxes 
had  been  freely  broken  for  her. 

Once  I  saw  an  alabaster  box  from  which  the 
fragrant  ointment  had  been  poured.  It  was  hi 
an  exposition  hi  London.  It  was  nothing  but  a 
rude  row  boat,  strong  and  sturdy  to  be  sure, 
but  no  delicate  marble  vase  was  ever  more  ex- 
quisite in  the  noble  service  which  it  rendered. 
Early  one  morning  as  a  wild  storm  rocked  Britain's 
granite-bound  shore  a  slip  of  a  girl  saw  a  wreck  on 


THE  NEW  DUTY  75 

the  rocks  of  a  distant  island  and  heard  the  cries 
for  help;  but  no  lifeboat  could  live  in  such  a 
furious  sea.  The  girl  aroused  her  aged  father, 
but  he  said  it  was  no  use;  it  would  be  certain 
death.  The  brave  girl  leaped  into  the  lighthouse 
boat  and  said  she  would  go  alone.  The  impossible 
had  no  fears  or  intimidation  for  her;  and  her 
father  was  stimulated  by  her  invincible  purpose 
and  accompanied  her;  and  nine  precious  lives 
were  saved  that  eventful  September  day.  Grace 
Darling,  though  in  frail  health,  broke  her  ala- 
baster box  and  won  an  imperishable  place  in  the 
annals  of  the  world's  deeds  of  heroism. 

There  was  an  alabaster  box  all  shattered  to 
pieces  hi  the  suburbs  of  Los  Angeles  not  long  ago. 
The  tower  watchman  was  at  his  place  at  the 
levers.  He  saw  a  wild  car  coming  like  a  mad 
demon  along  the  rails,  and  a  trolley  filled  with 
people  was  about  to  cross  the  tracks.  The  un- 
controlled car  must  be  derailed  at  all  hazards, 
but  if  this  were  done  the  momentum  with  which 
it  was  coming  would  cause  it  to  leap  from  the 
tracks  and  the  tower-house  would  be  directly  hi 
its  angry  path.  But  the  brave  fellow  in  the  tower 
never  hesitated  an  instant.  He  threw  the 
switch.  There  was  a  terrible  crash.  The  tower- 
house  was  demolished,  and  they  picked  the  man 
up  forty  feet  away  badly  bruised  but  not  seriously 
injured.  Men  of  noble  ideals  and  unselfish  mo- 
tives and  fidelity  to  their  trusts  can  be  depended 
upon  not  to  forsake  their  posts  of  duty  in  the 


76          DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

moment  of  unexpected  responsibility.  Character 
will  not  flinch  in  the  testing  time.  The  splintered 
tower-house,  though  not  so  dainty  as  broken 
marble,  was  equally  a  sacred  alabaster  box  of 
loving  ministry. 

Some  years  ago  in  Brooklyn  it  was  necessary 
for  a  woman  to  leave  her  baby  fast  asleep  in  the 
cradle  in  the  tenement  house  while  she  went 
around  the  corner  to  the  grocery  store.  On  her 
way  home  there  was  an  alarm  of  fire  and  in  a 
moment  she  found  that  the  blaze  was  in  the  house 
in  which  she  lived.  She  threw  her  basket  away 
and  with  breathless  haste  ran  toward  her  home 
crying  for  her  baby.  As  she  was  about  to  enter 
the  building  the  fire  chief  prevented  her,  and  she 
frantically  told  him  that  her  baby  was  there. 
The  chief  declared  that  the  fire  had  made  such 
progress  it  would  be  sure  death  for  anyone  to 
enter;  but  one  of  the  firemen  stepped  forward 
saying  he  had  a  child  at  home,  and  he  believed 
he  could  save  the  baby,  and  asked  permission  to 
try,  and  the  captain  consented.  Up  the  creaking 
stairs  he  went.  He  groped  his  way  through  smoke 
and  flames  until  he  finally  found  the  cradle  and 
had  the  baby  in  his  arms,  but  just  at  that  mo- 
ment there  was  a  fearful  crash  and  the  stairs 
and  half  of  the  floor  went  down,  leaving  the  brave 
fireman  hi  great  peril  on  the  side  of  the  house 
where  there  was  no  window.  With  a  loud  voice 
he  called  to  the  men  that  he  could  not  save  him- 
self, but  if  they  got  their  net  ready  he  could 


THE  NEW  DUTY  77 

throw  the  baby  out  of  the  window.  And  in  an 
instant  with  true  aim,  well  bundled  in  a  robe, 
the  baby  came  flying  through  the  window,  and 
was  soon  snug  and  unhurt  in  her  mother's  arms. 

In  Greenwood  Cemetery  there  is  a  modest 
monument  to  a  fireman  and  there  are  always 
fresh  flowers;  and  there  are  frequent  visits  by  a 
beautiful  young  woman,  who,  if  anyone  dared 
to  intrude  a  question,  would  answer  that  she 
owed  her  life  to  the  sacrifice  of  that  brave  hero 
in  the  tenement  fire  twenty  years  ago.  He  broke 
his  alabaster  box  and  with  it  his  life,  but  the 
whole  city  was  filled  with  the  odor  of  the  ointment. 

Not  long  since  I  was  once  more  in  Niles,  Ohio. 
My  very  first  parish  was  up  in  the  hills  just  above 
this  noisy,  smoky  little  manufacturing  city. 
Now,  nobody  ever  thought  of  Niles  as  being  a 
beautiful  place.  It  is  low  in  its  location  and  the 
lazy,  little  Mahoning  River  creeps  along  the  edge 
of  the  town.  There  are  numberless  rolling  mills 
which  send  forth  real  pillars  of  cloud  by  day  and 
real  pillars  of  fire  by  night.  There  was  no  special 
elegance  in  home,  or  park,  or  garden.  But  every- 
thing is  all  changed  now.  The  other  day  there 
was  dedicated  in  this  town  an  exquisitely  beau- 
tiful Georgia  marble  memorial  building,  for  Niles 
is  the  birthplace  of  William  McKinley,  and 
within  the  new  structure  there  is  a  remarkably 
fine  and  true  statue  of  the  martyred  President. 
This  beautiful  memorial  is  the  gift  of  those  who 
knew  and  loved  one  of  the  best  men  our  nation 


78          DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

has  produced.  But  the  building,  with  its  glisten- 
ing columns  and  spacious  corridors,  and  the 
statue  and  the  artistic  surroundings  have  trans- 
formed the  whole  town.  There  is  now  an  atmos- 
phere of  heroism,  of  manliness,  of  patriotism,  of 
divinity.  One  of  McKinley's  political  enemies 
said  of  him,  "McKinley  was  the  most  lovable 
man  I  ever  knew."  This  explains  why  he  was 
honored  by  his  contemporaries  and  why  he  will 
not  be  forgotten  by  a  grateful  posterity. 

It  is  love  which  makes  woman  the  great  human 
power  for  righteousness  hi  the  world.  It  is  the 
mother  love  which  fills  a  boy's  heart  with  holy 
aspirations.  It  is  the  wife's  love  which  sustains 
her  husband  in  every  contest  and  which  rewards 
him  with  tender  assurances. 

"Why,  man,  she  is  mine  own, 
And  I  as  rich  in  having  such  a  jewel 
As  twenty  seas,  if  all  their  sands  were  pearl, 
The  water  nectar,  and  the  rocks  pure  gold!"1 

It  is  a  daughter's  and  a  sister's  love  which 
sweetens  the  life  of  the  home  and  follows  the 
father  and  the  brother,  and,  like  an  angel  of 
light,  guards  and  protects. 

Even  God,  when  he  would  have  his  love  for 
mankind  better  understood,  allows  his  prophet 
to  tell  us  that  God  loves  us  with  a  mother's  love; 
and  when  David  would  adequately  describe  the 
affection  which  existed  between  Jonathan  and 
himself,  he  said  it  "passed  the  love  of  women." 

1  Shakespeare. 


THE  NEW  DUTY  79 

In  a  peculiar  sense  God  made  woman  to  love  and 
to  be  loved;  and  no  woman  reaches  her  highest 
ideals  except  as  she  is  lovable;  and  it  should  not 
be  less  so  with  man.  Of  the  true  man  it  must 
be  said, 

"The  loving  are  the  daring, 

The  bravest  are  the  tenderest." 

It  is  not  weakness  in  a  man  to  wish  to  be 
loved  and  to  love  strongly  in  return.  The 
Corinthian  column  is  not  less  enduring  because 
it  combines  beauty  and  strength. 

If  we  become  godlike,  we  will  love,  for  God 
is  love.  If  we  become  Christlike,  we  will  want 
to  be  loved,  for  did  not  Jesus  say  to  Peter,  "Lov- 
est  thou  me?"  and  we  will  freely  dispense  our 
love,  for  it  is  said  that  "Jesus  beholding  the  young 
man,  loved  him." 


V 
SEEING  THE  BLUE  IN  THE  SKY 


Riches  I  have  not  sought  and  have  not  found, 

And  fame  has  passed  me  with  averted  eye; 
In  creeks  and  bays  my  quiet  voyage  is  bound 

While  the  great  world  without  goes  surging  by. 
No  withering  envy  of  another's  lot, 

No  nightmare  of  contention  plagues  my  rest, 
For  me  alike  what  is  and  what  is  not, 

Both  what  I  have  and  what  I  lack  is  best, 
A  flower  more  sacred  than  far-seen  success 

Perfumes  my  solitary  path.     I  find 
Sweet  compensation  in  my  humbleness 

And  reap  the  harvest  of  a  tranquil  mind. 

— J.  T.  Trowbridge. 

O  dere  ain't  no  use  ob  frettin' 

Ef  de  sky  am  cold  and  gray; 
Keep  a  whislin'  and  a  singin' 

An'  de  clouds  will  roll  away; 
You  am  boun'  to  meet  wif  tempests 

As  you  trable  down  de  road, 
An'  de  sorrows  you  must  carry 

Am  a  mighty  heaby  load; 
But  no  trouble's  gwin'  to  crush  you 

Ef  you  only  keep  in  min' 
Dat  de  Lawd  am  in  his  heabens, 

An'  de  sun  am  boun'  to  shine! 

— Julia  A.  Galloway. 


CHAPTER  V 
SEEING  THE  BLUE  IN  THE  SKY 

THE  New  Day  must  be  a  hope  day,  a  happy 
day.  He  who  seeks  for  happiness  alone  will 
never  find  it,  but  he  who  seeks  to  be  useful  will 
find  happiness  at  every  turn. 

There  are  two  things  which  man  has  joined 
together  that  God  would  put  asunder.  They 
are  close  together  in  the  dictionary.  They  are 
closer  together  in  the  ceaseless  combats  of  human 
experience.  Like  gladiators  they  have  sought  for 
ascendency  through  many  bitter  encounters.  The 
one  comes  from  above,  the  other  from  beneath. 
The  one  stands  for  light,  the  other  for  darkness. 
The  one  leads  to  triumph,  the  other  to  tragedy. 
These  age-long  enemies  are  Optimism  and 
Pessimism. 

Pessimism  speaks  in  terms  of  doubt,  despair, 
and  death,  and  teaches  that  the  universe  is  tend- 
ing toward  nothingness.  Schopenhauer,  with 
limpid  logic,  much-vaunted  learning,  and  ghastly 
wit,  advanced  the  grewsome  theories  of  pessimism. 
He  declared  that  this  was  the  worst  possible 
world;  that  it  is  better  to  be  dead  than  to  be 
alive;  and  that  existence  itself  is  an  evil. 

The  favorite  refrain  of  pessimism  is  a  familiar 
83 


84          DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

but  dismal  quatrain  from  the  paganistic  philos- 
ophy of  the  Rubaiyat: 

"A  moment's  halt — a  momentary  taste 
Of  being  from  the  well  amid  the  waste — 
And  lo! — the  phantom  caravan  has  reached 
The  nothing  it  set  out  from — oh,  make  haste!" 

The  pessimist  exaggerates  the  evils  of  life, 
and  looks  always  on  the  dark  side.  He  indulges 
in  melancholy  and  depressing  views  of  men  and 
things.  He  becomes  cynical,  hypercritical,  and 
misanthropic.  He  is  one  who,  as  Mark  Twain 
said,  has  the  choice  of  two  evils  and  takes  them 
both. 

Optimism  is  founded  upon  the  metaphysical 
doctrine  of  Leibnitz  that  the  existing  universe 
is  the  best  of  all  universes:  that  the  universe 
steadily  advances  as  a  whole.  Christian  opti- 
mism teaches  that  there  is  no  limit  to  spiritual 
development;  that  all  forces  can  so  cooperate  as 
to  result  in  a  higher  realization  of  God,  of  self, 
of  duty  and  of  life.  It  does  not  accept  the  false, 
fatalistic  philosophy  of  Pope  that  "Whatever  is 
is  right,"  or  that  "Partial  evil  is  the  general 
good."  This  Calvinistic  philosophy,  with  its  in- 
exorable predestination  exploitations,  was  aban- 
doned long  ago  as  heartlessly  inconsistent  with 
human  volition  and  divine  goodness. 

Optimism  believes  that  there  is  perfect  design 
in  history,  as  well  as  in  the  universe;  that  the 
fittest  survives;  that  "all  things  work  together 
for  good  to  those  who  love  God."  Optimism  is 


SEEING  THE  BLUE  IN  THE  SKY     85 

obedience;  optimism  is  order;  optimism  is  peace; 
optimism  is  happiness;  optimism  is  life. 

Optimism  does  not  embrace  that  fantastic,  easy- 
going, laissez-faire  policy,  which  would  let  well- 
enough  alone,  but  it  aggressively  and  enthusi- 
astically dedicates  itself  to  accelerating  the  upward 
trend  by  being  itself  better,  and  helping  others 
to  be  better.  It  declares  with  the  great  apostle 
of  optimism,  "Ye  cannot  do  anything  against 
the  Truth,  but  for  the  Truth." 

Optimism  believes  in  the  final  supremacy  of 
good  over  evil,  of  the  best  over  the  worst,  that 
God  is  stronger  than  the  Devil,  and  that  though 
we  may  lose  a  battle,  we  shall  win  in  the  war. 

The  cheerful  vesper  hymn  of  optimism  sings: 

"Whichever  way  the  wind  doth  blow, 
Some  heart  is  glad  to  have  it  so; 
Then  blow  it  east,  or  blow  it  west, 
The  wind  that  blows,  that  wind  is  best. 

Optimism  is  the  sunshine — pessimism  is  the 
shadow;  pessimism  follows  dolefully  upon  the 
heels  of  optimism.  Perhaps  it  is  well  for  optimism 
sometimes  to  hear  the  gloomy  prognostications 
of  pessimism,  otherwise  optimism  might  fail  to 
comprehend  the  gravity  and  strength  of  evil, 
and  the  necessity  of  incessant  vigilance  and 
stratagem. 

If  pessimists  were  loyal  to  their  own  melancholy 
philosophy,  they  should  go  off  to  the  edge  of 
the  world  and  throw  themselves  over.  I  would 


86          DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

not  be  a  pessimist  with  the  clammy  sweat  of 
death  and  fear  always  on  my  brow. 

I  should  rather  be  an  optimist,  even  incurring 
some  danger  of  fanaticism.  If  the  impossible 
theories  of  pessimism  were  partially  correct,  I 
should  rather  hasten  to  extinction  on  a  band- 
wagon of  music  and  hope  than  to  make  the 
journey  hi  the  dismal  confines  of  a  patrol  wagon, 
or  a  "Black  Maria." 

An  optimist  goes  out  and  tries  to  get  some- 
thing done,  while  a  pessimist  stays  at  home  and 
wonders  why  he  doesn't  do  it  some  other  way. 

The  great  theme  of  the  universe  is  the  evolu- 
tion of  the  good,  the  unfolding  of  the  best.  There 
is  an  upward  trend.  The  lower  moves  into  the 
higher.  When  the  doughty  Carlyle  was  told 
that  Margaret  Fuller  had  concluded  to  accept 
the  universe,  the  facetious  Scotchman  replied, 
"She'd  better." 

We  would  better  accept  the  universe;  it  is 
beneficent.  The  movement  is  from  the  simple 
to  the  complex;  out  of  chaos  into  order,  out  of 
decay  into  growth;  triumph  out  of  tragedy, 
victory  out  of  defeat,  and  hope  out  of  despair. 

Life  is  the  climax  of  all  creation,  and  life  is 
moving  on  toward  perfection.  Life  persists.  It 
resists,  it  defies  extinction;  if  crushed  and  broken, 
it  seeks  to  recover  itself. 

"Persistency  of  force,"  is  a  phrase  suggested 
by  Herbert  Spencer  to  sum  up  all  the  laws  of 
mechanics;  so  the  "Persistency  of  life"  sums 


SEEING  THE  BLUE  IN  THE  SKY    87 

up  all  the  laws  of  force.  It  is  man's  duty  and 
privilege  to  live,  and  never,  even  in  old  age, 
should  there  be  any  cessation  of  his  purpose  to 
live. 

Civilization  is  but  the  increased  appreciation 
of  life  and  the  privilege  of  living.  Life  is  oppor- 
tunity, power,  character,  immortality. 

Christianity  has  surpassed  all  other  forms  of 
truth,  because  it  more  highly  values  human  and 
soul  life.  The  longevity  of  the  race  steadily  in- 
creases under  the  benign  influence  of  Christ. 
No  circumstances  of  disaster  or  disappointment 
should  be  allowed  to  discourage  and  defeat  the 
purposes  of  our  lives.  Many  persons  lapse  into 
inactivity  and  uselessness  because  they  have 
encountered  an  inimical  influence  and  have  suf- 
fered defeat. 

An  incontrovertible  argument  that  God  is  the 
great  conservator  of  human  life,  and  does  not 
send  disease,  may  be  found  in  the  fact  that  where 
Christian  ideas  are  adopted  the  number  and 
virulency  of  diseases  diminish  and  longevity 
steadily  increases. 

To-day  the  conservation  of  human  life  is 
everywhere  the  watchword.  The  last  census 
shows  that  the  death  rate  is  15.4  in  each  thousand 
of  the  population.  The  prolongation  of  life  means, 
of  course,  the  decrease  of  invalidism  and  the  con- 
sequent increase  of  happiness  and  productive 
power. 

The  gain  to  humanity  is  due  to  systematic 


88          DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

research  to  discover  the  cause  and  prevention  of 
disease;  the  finding  of  new  remedies  and  anti- 
toxins for  prevalent  diseases;  the  increase  of 
hospitals  and  training  schools  for  nurses;  the 
campaign  against  tuberculosis  and  typhoid,  and 
other  infections;  the  penalties  imposed  upon  those 
who  sell  tainted  articles  of  food,  etc. 

It  is  said  that  there  are  in  this  country  an- 
nually six  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  preventible 
deaths.  Nothing  can  be  more  unjust  or  untrue 
than  to  claim  that  our  heavenly  Father  sends 
disease;  that  in  the  culture  tubes  of  his  mysterious 
laboratory  he  is  producing  all  sorts  of  infectious 
germs,  and  scattering  the  contents  of  this  Pan- 
dora's box  among  a  helpless  and  hapless  human- 
ity. Such  an  idea  is  sheer  nonsense.  We  have 
passed  that  mediaeval  fetish  long  ago. 

In  Havana  the  death  rate  after  American  occu- 
pation fell  from  fifty  to  twenty.  In  Lawrence, 
Massachusetts,  after  the  installation  of  a  new 
water  supply  the  death  rate  from  typhoid  was 
reduced  eighty  per  cent.  In  Prussia  the  death 
rate  from  smallpox  has  been  decreased  by  com- 
pulsory vaccination  from  24  to  1.5.  The  yellow 
fever  in  the  United  States  has  practically  dis- 
appeared. At  present  in  Massachusetts  life  is 
lengthening  at  the  rate  of  about  fourteen  years 
per  century;  in  Europe  about  seventeen;  in 
India,  where  medical  progress  is  practically  un- 
known, it  remains  stationary.  It  is  now  math- 
ematically estimated  that  at  least  fifteen  years 


SEEING  THE  BLUE  IN  THE  SKY    89 

can  be  added  to  the  average  human  life  by  living 
up  to  our  present  medical  knowledge. 

In  the  interest  of  the  conservation  of  life 
every  saloon  and  tobacco  store  should  be  closed. 
Narcotics,  stimulants,  gluttony,  unchastity,  ne- 
glect of  hygiene  and  sanitation  are  all  prolific 
sources  of  disease.  The  deadly  leprosy  of  the 
social  evil  should  be  suppressed;  degenerates 
should  not  be  permitted  to  marry,  and  all  sani- 
tation laws  should  be  rigidly  enforced. 

The  day  is  coming  when  no  man  shall  be 
legally  permitted  to  make  a  dollar  or  indulge  an 
appetite  at  the  expense  of  the  health  or  long 
life  of  himself  or  another. 

Happiness  is  the  goal  which  all  are  seeking,  a 
secret  which  all  would  find.  It  is  our  duty  to 
be  happy;  it  is  our  right  to  be  happy.  The  philos- 
opher's stone,  which  can  transform  all  the  dross 
of  life  into  purest  joys,  is  hope.  The  fabled 
fountain  which  will  insure  eternal  youth  and 
beauty  is  contentment.  True  happiness  is  not 
only  a  duty  and  a  right,  but  it  is  a  possible  pos- 
session; it  is  the  sure  prize  of  those  who  seek 
aright. 

There  is  an  intricate  and  exquisite  conspiracy 
in  the  universe  to  make  men  happy.  There  are 
carnivals  of  beauty,  panoramas  of  splendor, 
oratorios  of  music,  laughing  waters,  dancing  sun- 
beams, singing  birds,  chanting  seas,  delicious 
fruits,  and  enchanting  flowers.  Nature  is  not 
cruel,  health  is  contagious,  and  there  is  a  survival 


90          DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

of  the  fittest.  "The  common  course  of  things  is 
in  favor  of  happiness;  happiness  is  the  rule,  misery 
is  the  exception."1 

As  God  made  the  sun  to  shine,  and  the  flowers 
to  bloom,  and  the  seas  to  ebb  and  flow,  so  he 
made  man  to  be  happy.  "If  any  man  is  un- 
happy," said  a  wise  man,  "this  must  be  his  own 
fault,  for  God  made  all  men  to  be  happy."  The 
very  law  of  our  being  is  happiness.  A  crime  is 
an  offense  against  the  laws  of  God  and  man; 
unhappiness  is  such  an  offense,  hence  a  crime  and 
a  tragedy. 

Happiness  may  be  discovered  in  life's  activities 
— in  unremitting  endeavor;  not  in  the  bluster 
and  haste  which  enervate  and  defeat,  but  in  the 
constant  use  of  our  capacities.  Unrest  and 
atrophy  occur  when  energies  are  allowed  to  be- 
come stagnant.  An  aimless  life  is  always  an 
unhappy  life. 

Leisure  and  rest  have  exquisite  flavor  where 
they  are  the  punctuation  points  of  duties  faith- 
fully discharged  and  ambitions  steadily  realized. 
Activity  defies  mfirmity,  and  octogenarians  like 
John  Wesley,  John  G.  Whittier,  and  William 
Ewart  Gladstone  hold  old  age  at  bay  while  they 
elaborate  the  closing  achievements  of  eventful 
careers. 

Struggle  is  necessary  to  strength.  The  benev- 
olently inclined  young  lady  who  cut  off  the  tail 
of  the  pollywog  to  hasten  the  stages  of  its  evolu- 

»Paley. 


SEEING  THE  BLUE  IN  THE  SKY    91 

tion  wept  in  dismay  when  she  found  she  had 
ended  the  life  of  the  little  dismembered  creature. 
It  needed  the  labor  of  getting  rid  of  its  tail  to 
develop  strength  for  the  responsibilities  of  its 
promotion. 

If  there  are  stunted  growths  and  undeveloped 
lives  among  the  youth  of  these  prosperous  dec- 
ades, may  it  not  be  that  our  educational  and 
domestic  methods  are  affording  too  much  assist- 
ance, or  ease,  or  luxury  to  these  little  human 
pollywogs?  Every  faculty  of  our  being  is  made 
more  robust  by  constant  and  sensible  activity. 
To  be  able  to  bring  things  to  pass  conduces  to 
true  happiness. 

What  real  joy  is  stored  away  in  a  good  book! 
Study  may  be  found  an  unfailing  source  of  pleas- 
ure. We  can  read  great  books  until  their  authors 
become  our  abiding  companions.  A  few  years 
ago  I  rambled  among  the  tombs  of  Mount  Auburn 
and  Sleepy  Hollow.  I  found  myself  truly  offended 
when  I  saw  gravestones  which  bore  the  names 
of  Lowell,  Longfellow,  Emerson,  Hawthorne,  and 
Agassiz.  For  who,  that  is  daily  associating  with 
these  choice  spirits  in  the  precious  legacy  of  the 
books  they  have  written,  can  believe  that  these 
men  are  dead?  No,  they  live,  and  are  more 
universally  alive  to-day  than  when  they  threaded 
the  streets  of  Cambridge,  or  walked  among  the 
shady  bowers  of  Concord. 

The  culture  of  the  mind  brings  forth  the  flower 
and  the  fragrance  and  the  fruitage  of  our  in- 


92          DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

tellectual  natures.  Truth  invigorates;  it  makes 
buoyant  and  youthful.  Truth  is  never  old,  never 
discordant. 

Then,  too,  what  perennial  fountains  of  sparkling 
happiness  are  found  in  music,  and  art,  and  poetry! 
And  what  shall  be  said  about  nature?  If  people 
would  be  happy,  they  must  get  out  of  doors. 
God  made  the  heavens,  but  man  made  the  houses. 
Many  houses  are  devices  of  Satan  to  shut  man 
away  from  his  God. 

All  nature  is  redolent  of  divinity.  It  is  hard 
for  a  naturalist  to  be  an  unbeliever.  Some  great 
nature  students  have  despised  creeds,  but  maybe 
it  was  because  then*  great  God  was  too  mighty 
to  be  bounded  and  measured  by  man's  dialectical 
tapeline  or  foot  rule.  We  should  get  out  of  doors. 
God,  music,  might,  seas,  trees,  mountains,  and 
men  are  out  of  doors;  and  if  we  would  be  happy, 
we  must  associate  with  the  world  outside,  for 
we  have  a  divine  commission  to  subdue  the  earth. 
The  "flower  in  the  crannied  wall"  has  yet  many 
beautiful  lessons  for  the  thoughtful  student. 

The  widow  of  Schumann  says  that  whenever 
she  was  to  play  hi  public  any  of  her  husband's 
music,  she  would  read  over  and  over  again  the 
dear  love  letters  he  had  written  her  during  his 
life.  All  true  love  is  divine,  and  what  we  call 
human  love  is  really  divine  love,  and  is  one  of 
our  earthly  faculties  which  is  the  sure  prophecy 
of  the  estate  of  infinity  to  which  we  are  going, 
as  it  is  the  token  of  the  infinite  heart  from  which 


SEEING  THE  BLUE  IN  THE  SKY     93 

we  have  sprung.  No  man  can  be  truly  happy 
who  does  not  truly  love,  or  is  not  truly  loved. 
"The  greatest  of  these  is  love." 

If  we  would  see  the  blue  hi  the  sky  in  the 
hurrying  years,  we  must  be  busy  doing  good  and 
useful  things.  Not  like  the  animals,  which  by 
hunger  and  necessity  and  self-preservation  are 
"irritated  into  action."  People  should  do  good 
for  the  love  of  goodness.  No  man  is  a  soldier 
who  must  be  driven  to  battle.  No  boy  is  a  scholar 
who  must  be  flogged  to  school.  No  man  is  good 
who  must  be  scourged  to  duty.  "A  man  is  not 
good  at  all  unless  he  takes  pleasure  in  noble 
deeds.  No  man  would  call  a  man  just  who  did 
not  take  pleasure  in  justice,  nor  generous  who 
took  no  pleasure  in  acts  of  generosity."1 

True  happiness  is  hidden  away  in  honest  toil. 
The  busy  man  is  the  contented  man! 

"Get  leave  to  work 

In  this  world — 'tis  the  best  you  get  at  all; 
For  God,  in  cursing,  gives  us  better  gifts 
Than  men  in  benediction;  God  says  'sweat' 
For  foreheads;  men  say  'crowns';  and  so  we're  crowned, 
Ay,  gashed  by  some  tormenting  circle  of  steel 
Which  snaps  with  a  secret  spring.     Get  work;  get  work; 
Be  sure  'tia  better  than  what  you  work  to  get."1 

The  blue  sky  is  always  found  hi  service.  He 
who  would  be  "happy"  among  you,  as  well  as 
"he  who  would  be  chief  among  you,  must  be  the 
servant  of  all."  When  the  old  French  nobility 

1  Aristotle.  *  Mrs.  Browning. 


94          DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

chose  as  their  motto,  "Noblesse  oblige,"  they 
simply  accentuated  one  of  the  finest  principles 
of  the  social  organism,  that  "rank  or  privilege  is 
obligation."  Autocracies,  feudal  systems,  wars, 
and  all  selfish  ambitions  must  gradually  go  down 
before  such  a  scepter.  He  who  is  not  capable 
of  service  is  not  capable  of  joy. 

The  places  of  honor  in  the  true  nobility  of 
earth  are  reserved  for  those  who  most  affection- 
ately serve  their  fellow  men — these  will  outrank 
all  hereditary  titles  and  positions. 

A  recent  writer  has  felicitously  and  truly  sug- 
gested that  all  humanity  can  be  divided  between 
"makers  of  joy  and  makers  of  sorrow."  She 
says:  "This  older  psychology  which  divided  men 
dogmatically  into  good  and  bad,  wise  and  foolish, 
strong  and  weak,  pure  and  impure,  atheist  and 
believer,  contained  too  many,  or  too  insufficient 
shades  of  differences.  Would  it  not  be  better 
and  more  practical  to  divide  men  henceforth  into 
two  new  classes,  corresponding  to  the  future 
tendencies  toward  which  we  are  drifting — 'Makers 
of  Sorrow'  and  'Makers  of  Joy/  since  every  day 
it  becomes  more  evident  that  this  classification 
will  become  the  true  measure  of  man's  worth? 
Christianity  seems  foremost  in  returning  to  simple 
formulas  and  concentrating  her  forces  on  two 
principal  ideas:  the  Fatherhood  of  God  and  the 
brotherhood  of  man."1 

We  will  easily  find  the  blue  hi  our  own  skies 

1  Dora  Melegari  of  Italy. 


SEEING  THE  BLUE  IN  THE  SKY    95 

x 

if  we  help  to  clear  away  the  clouds  from  the 
skies  of  others.  It  is,  indeed,  an  irony  of  fate 
that  some  of  the  world's  best  benefactors  have 
often  received  despicable  treatment  from  human- 
ity. The  early  Methodists  were  denounced  as 
"consecrated  cobblers"  and  a  "nest  of  vermin," 
by  men  who  dipped  their  pens  in  gall.  Dwight 
L.  Moody  was  refused  a  license  to  preach  be- 
cause of  his  poor  grammar.  A  Chicago  publisher 
told  me  regretfully  that  he  refused  the  manu- 
script of  In  His  Steps  when  Charles  M.  Sheldon 
sent  it  to  him  for  publication.  It  is  not  forgotten 
that  the  students  at  Edinburgh  nicknamed  Walter 
Scott  "the  great  blockhead."  Longfellow  was 
refused  fourteen  dollars  for  his  "Excelsior"  by  an 
insulting  publisher;  and  where  are  the  people  now 
who  laughed  at  a  poor  and  lonely  young  man 
who  appeared  hi  the  streets  of  Boston  one  winter 
day  in  linen  trousers,  known  to-day  as  the  Wizard 
of  Menlo  Park— Thomas  A.  Edison?  When  will 
a  thoughtless  humanity  profit  by  the  fact  that 
"Seven  cities  contend  for  Homer  dead  through 
which  the  living  Homer  begged  his  bread"? 

Since  all  clouds  have  a  silver  lining  and  every 
dark  shadow  has  a  bright  side — for  there  would 
be  no  shadows  if  there  were  no  sun — if  anyone 
would  be  happy,  he  must  look  for  the  blue  in 
the  sky.  It  may  be  his  duty,  unlike  the  sun  dial, 
to  mark  other  than  the  bright  hours,  but  he  will 
not  be  wise  unless  he  adopts  the  motto  of  a  vener- 
able English  bishop,  "Serve  God  and  be  cheerful." 


96          DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

It  is  hard  to  persuade  some  people  to  be  Chris- 
tians when  it  is  seen  that  occasionally  the  most 
unhappy  and  most  disagreeable  people  pose  in  a 
community  as  Christians.  One  of  the  first  things 
true  religion  does  for  some  people  is  to  make 
it  possible  for  other  people  to  live  with  them. 
It  may  be  possible  that  fault-finding  and  com- 
plaining people  will  escape  misery,  but  it  is  cer- 
tain that  those  who  have  to  live  with  them 
do  not.  I  am  sure  God  has  a  special  crown  of 
beauty  in  heaven  for  those  persons  who  are  com- 
pelled to  live  on  earth  with  disagreeable  and 
cynical  people. 

The  tender  and  the  witty  Hood  said: 

"No  solemn  and  sanctimonious  face  I  pull, 
And  think  I  am  pious  when  I  am  only  bilious." 

What  is  the  use  of  worrying?  None,  because 
worry  unfits  for  the  battle  of  life;  it  is  like  coward- 
ice to  the  soldier;  it  takes  away  poise  and  nerve 
and  destroys  capacity  to  enjoy  even  after  we 
have  attained.  It  is  a  species  of  fatalism,  a  soul 
malady  which,  unless  cured,  often  leads  to  de- 
mentia and  death. 

People  worry  about  the  past  because  of  lost 
opportunity  and  what  they  might  have  been. 
The  past  is  useful  only  as  it  instructs  and  inspires 
for  the  future. 

We  worry  about  the  future  and  weaken  our- 
selves for  the  conflict  by  fearful  forebodings 
which  are  never  fulfilled.  The  first  steamship 


SEEING  THE  BLUE  IN  THE  SKY    97 

which  ever  crossed  the  Atlantic  carried  in  its 
cargo  copies  of  Dr.  Lardner's  famous  but  useless 
book,  which  was  laboriously  written  to  prove 
that  it  was  an  utter  impossibility  for  a  steamship 
to  carry  enough  coal  to  make  the  voyage  from 
Liverpool  to  New  York. 

Israel's  warrior  poet  was  acquainted  with  the 
tendency  of  men  to  overanxiety,  for  he  wrote 
in  one  of  his  most  thrilling  poems,  "Fret  not 
thyself  because  of  evildoers."  Good  is  stronger 
than  evil,  or  else  the  world  long  ago  would  have 
been  destroyed. 

A  merry  heart  sees  the  bright  side  of  things. 
It  believes  that  the  blackest  cloud  has  a  silver 
lining.  It  does  not  allow  itself  to  be  overwhelmed 
with  anxiety,  and  is  patient  in  the  midst  of 
uncertainty.  It  is  sustained  by  an  unfaltering 
trust  and  does  not  murmur  while  purposes  are 
ripening. 

It  is  commonly  reported  that  a  cat  has  nine 
lives,  but  from  my  childhood  I  have  heard  that 
once  care  killed  a  cat.  I  used  to  wonder  when 
I  was  a  lad  about  "corroding  care"  and  what 
it  was,  but  I  understand  better  now,  and  realize 
what  Shakespeare  means  when  he  says, 

"Care  is  no  cure,  but  rather  a  corrosive 
For  things  that  are  not  to  be  remedied." 

Care,  indeed,  is  a  corrosive  sublimate  and  is 
a  deadly  poison  to  happiness,  and,  sooner  or 
later,  to  life. 


98          DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

Why  are  we  everlastingly  after  more  things, 
more  money,  more  lands,  more  houses,  more 
clothes?  Certainly  we  know  that 

"Old  care  has  a  mortgage  on  every  estate 
And  that's  what  you  pay  for  the  wealth  that  you  get."1 

The  United  States  Public  Health  Service  has 
been  saying  some  practical  things  on  this  subject: 

"The  birds  build  nests  for  the  protection  of 
their  young  against  the  weather,  the  foxes  dig 
holes  for  security  against  foes,  the  squirrels  lay 
by  stores  of  nuts  against  the  coming  of  winter, 
and  dogs  bury  bones  against  the  day  when  bones 
will  be  scarce.  These  are  the  manifestations  of  a 
normal  protective  instinct  arising  from  an  expe- 
rience of  many,  many  generations.  So  far  as  is 
known,  though,  no  bird  ever  tried  to  build  more 
nests  than  his  neighbor;  no  fox  ever  fretted  be- 
cause he  only  had  one  hole  in  which  to  hide; 
no  squirrel  ever  died  of  anxiety  lest  he  should 
not  lay  by  enough  nuts  for  two  winters  instead  of 
one;  and  no  dog  ever  lost  any  sleep  over  the  fact 
that  he  didn't  have  enough  bones  laid  aside  to 
provide  for  his  declining  years. 

"This  protective  instinct  is  also  present  in  the 
human  mind,  and  when  properly  directed  is  a 
great  source  of  prosperity  both  to  the  individual 
and  the  nation.  In  order  for  man  to  store  up 
and  lay  by,  to  gain  advancement  either  in  honor 
or  material  things,  it  is  necessary  that  he  take 

'John  G.  Base. 


SEEING  THE  BLUE  IN  THE  SKY    99 

some  forethought  of  the  morrow,  but  just  so 
soon  as  he  carries  this  beyond  the  normal  point, 
the  mental  process  becomes  an  exaggerated  and 
abnormal  one.  The  normal  protective  instinct  is 
stimulated  by  a  normal  fear  of  those  events  which 
are  reasonably  sure  to  happen  hi  the  future 
unless  means  are  adopted  against  them.  The 
moment  that  this  fear  becomes  abnormal  or  ex- 
aggerated it  overstimulates  this  protective  in- 
stinct, and  to  no  good  purpose  because  it  results 
in  worry." 

Worry  is,  therefore,  an  abnormal  state,  and 
we  should  study  to  prevent  the  cause  of  worry; 
and  when  troubles  come,  as  they  are  bound  to 
come  to  every  one,  if  we  shall  have  endeavored 
to  cultivate  the  tranquil  mind,  the  momentum  of 
a  quiet  spirit  will  carry  us  over  the  testing  mo- 
ments which  sorrow  and  adversity  may  bring. 
There  appeared  one  like  unto  the  Son  of  God 
in  the  fiery  furnace  with  the  three  Hebrew  chil- 
dren. We  cannot  afford  to  be  whimsical  and 
childish  when  the  trial  of  our  manhood  and 
womanhood  occurs.  The  worries  of  to-day  are 
the  jokes  of  to-morrow. 

If  a  man  would  live  on  twenty-four  hours  a 
day  and  be  happy  and  useful,  he  must  learn  how 
to  play.  At  a  little  wayside  resort  in  New  Eng- 
land is  the  sign,  "Why  not  Rest?"  People  be- 
come thin  and  scrawny  who  will  not  rest  and 
play.  People  who  play  pray  better.  People 
who  play  pay  better,  and  only  those  who  play 


100         DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

once  in  a  while  know  how  delicious  is  work. 
Old  fundamental  educational  ideals  down  to  a 
half  a  century  ago  excluded  play,  but  Froebel's 
initiative  is  generally  followed  in  all  educational 
systems  to-day.  Play  is  relaxation,  it  is  the 
physical  exercise  which  furnishes  a  needed  tonic 
for  the  nerves  and  rest  for  the  brain.  If  a  man 
would  live  to  be  old,  he  must  faithfully  use  his 
twenty-four  hours  a  day.  "Every  man  desires 
to  live  long,  but  no  man  would  be  old."1 

A  man  is  old  when  his  work  is  done.  "I  feel 
as  young  as  ever  I  did,"  is  the  exultant  cry  of 
the  man  who  is  "still  achieving,  still  pursuing." 
Men  at  work  forget  to  grow  old.  "A  man  is  as 
young  as  he  feels,  a  woman  is  as  old  as  she  looks." 

Bounding  ambition  is  a  fine  specific  against  in- 
firmity. When  W.  W.  Story  was  asked  which 
one  of  his  masterpieces  in  marble  gave  him  the 
most  satisfaction,  he  replied,  "The  one  I  am  now 
working  upon." 

"Give  me  health  and  a  day,"  cried  the  philos- 
opher. Ability  and  opportunity  with  health  and 
a  day  mean  long  and  successful  living,  and  the 
defeat  of  old  age. 

"Forenoon  and  afternoon  and  night,  Forenoon 

and  afternoon  and  night — Forenoon  and — What? 
The  empty  song  repeats  itself.     No  more? 
Yes,  what  is  life;  make  this  forenoon  sublime, 
This  afternoon  a  psalm,  this  night  a  prayer; 
And  tune  is  conquered,  and  thy  crown  is  won."1 

'Swift.  »E.  R.  Sill. 


SEEING  THE  BLUE  IN  THE  SKY  101 

A  man  in  Eugene,  Oregon,  recently  gave  fifty 
thousand  dollars  to  found  a  theological  seminary 
in  connection  with  the  State  University.  A  few 
days  later  he  was  nearly  struck  by  an  automobile; 
when  he  saw  he  wasn't  killed,  not  even  hurt,  he 
burst  out  in  such  a  volley  of  profanity  that  they 
arrested  him  and  fined  him  five  dollars  for  break- 
ing the  city  ordinance.  Many  a  man  by  his 
own  inconsistencies  invalidates  much  of  the  good 
he  endeavors  to  do.  After  all,  what  a  man  does 
will  not  be  more  influential  for  good  than  what 
a  man  is.  His  ideals  will  furnish  direction  and 
momentum  to  the  arrows  which  go  from  his  bow. 
Character  is  the  principal  thing!  That  man 
will  not  be  able  to  make  a  life  on  twenty-four 
hours  a  day  or  on  twenty-four  tunes  twenty- 
four  hours  who  has  not  learned  that  he  who 
cheats  his  fellowmen  cheats  and  defeats  him- 
self. 

There  is  a  glad  side  of  things,  and  it  is  the 
factorship  of  hope  to  find  the  bright  side,  to 
dwell  among  the  bright  things,  to  preach  the 
gospel  of  the  light,  to  rejoice  evermore  and  to 
keep  this  old  earth  ringing  with  gladdest  music. 
As  the  light  pierces  the  black  night  with  its 
blazing  shafts,  so  must  hope  run  its  aisles  of 
brightness  through  all  the  gloom  and  despair  of 
life. 

The  glad  side  of  things  may  be  logically  pred- 
icated and  established  upon  a  few  simple  prin- 
ciples of  Christian  philosophy.  God  rules! — 


102        DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

sometimes  in  "a  mysterious  way,  his  wonders 
to  perform,"  but 

"His  purposes  are  ripening  fast, 
Unfolding  every  hour." 

There  is  a  distinct  upward  tendency  in  the  trend 
of  human  events.  God  has  been  present  at  all 
of  the  pivotal  points  in  history — constraining,  re- 
buking, and  controlling.  A  careful  study  of  the 
philosophy  of  history  shows  unmistakably  the 
influence  of  a  great  power.  Design  is  as  distinct 
in  history  as  in  the  printing  press.  There  is  a 
manifest  survival  of  the  fittest — all  history  sus- 
tains the  claim  of  Jesus  Christ — "the  meek  shall 
inherit  the  earth."  Paul's  dictum,  "All  things 
work  together  for  good,"  has  been  continually 
demonstrated  hi  the  lives  of  those  who  fill  the 
conditions  of  the  promise,  "to  them  that  love 
God."  Love  is  obedience,  obedience  is  order, 
order  is  peace,  and  peace  is  happiness. 

There  may  be  a  "glad  side"  even  of  mistakes. 
Milton  used  to  say,  "I  care  not  how  many  errors 
are  loose  in  the  world,  so  long  as  truth  is  left  to 
run  among  them."  John  Brown's  error  at  Har- 
pers Ferry  helped  a  nation  of  patriots  to  find 
out  the  true  way.  There  is  great  cause  for  anxiety, 
and  for  awakening  from  lethargy  on  account  of 
the  evils  around  us,  but  there  is  really  no  ground 
for  pessimism.  A  principle  of  Schopenhauer's 
pessimistic  philosophy  is  that  "life  is  an  evil"; 
he  joins  hands  with  the  Buddhist  in  welcoming 


SEEING  THE  BLUE  IN  THE  SKY  103 

death.    Pessimism  and  paganism  are  despair,  but 
Christianity  is  hope. 

There  is  a  "glad  side"  to  all  of  the  trials  and 
conflicts  of  life.  Struggle  has  characterized  all 
advancement.  Time  is  usually  indispensable  to 
success.  "All  things  come  round  to  him  who 
will  but  wait."  Justice  is  sometimes  delayed,  but 
the  Dreyfuses  are  often  brought  back  from  exile. 
A  tiny  baby  was  left  on  a  doorstep.  He  was 
without  a  name,  and  because  he  was  a  child  he 
was  called  George  Washington  Childs.  At  his 
death  multitudes  mourned  his  death  and  rejoiced 
on  account  of  his  life.  He  was  a  great  journalist 
and  a  boundless  benefactor.  Thomas  A.  Edison 
was  born  in  poverty,  and  at  twelve  years  of  age 
was  a  train-boy  on  the  Grand  Trunk  Railway. 
The  great  Whitefield  helped  himself  through  Ox- 
ford by  blacking  the  shoes  of  the  students.  Nearly 
every  rich  man  in  this  country  began  life  as  a 
poor  boy.  Bunyan  and  Cervantes  wrote  their 
great  masterpieces  in  prison;  and  but  for  the 
afflictions  of  Milton  and  Dante  and  Scott  there 
would  have  been  no  "Paradise  Lost,"  no  "Divine 
Comedy,"  and  no  "Ivanhoe."  Nearly  all  great 
philanthropies  have  been  established,  and  are 
liberally  sustained,  by  those  who  have  suffered. 
During  the  Crimean  War  a  cannon  ball  plowed 
its  way  into  a  beautiful  garden  inside  a  fort,  and 
immediately  there  sprung  up  a  fountain  of  cool 
water.  Trials  often  discover  and  develop  the 
best  qualities  of  the  soul.  Patient  struggle 


104         DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

usually  achieves,  though  sometimes  victory  comes 
with  tardy  feet.  When  somebody  sympathized 
with  an  Irish  hod-carrier  because  of  his  heavy 
load  and  the  high  ladders,  he  replied,  "Och,  be- 
gorra,  I  am  coming  down  half  of  the  time!" 

There  are  even  silver  linings  to  the  dark  clouds 
of  affliction  and  death,  when  the  toilsome  tapestry 
weaver  remembers  that  the  dark  threads  must 
be  woven  with  the  bright  ones,  if  the  pattern  of 
life  shall  be  wrought  in  harmony  with  the  Master's 
great  thought. 

The  most  miraculous  thing  that  happens  any 
glorious  day  is  the  sunrise  in  the  morning,  but 
there  is  not  a  sound — not  a  discordant  note. 
Rosy-fingered  Aurora  rolls  up  out  of  the  night 
in  her  chariot  of  fire;  there  is  not  a  rumble  of 
the  golden  wheels;  there  is  no  champing  of  the 
bits  of  the  fiery  steeds.  All  is  a  bursting  climax 
of  blazing  quietness. 

"See  now,  that  radiant  bow  of  pillared  fires 
Spanning  the  hills  like  dawn  until  they  lie  in  soft  tranquillity 
And  all  night's  ghostly  glooms  asunder  roll."1 

Cicero  in  one  of  his  orations  told  the  Roman 
people  that  "a  happy  life  consists  in  tranquillity 
of  mind." 

Do  we  not  love  that  sweet  word  "serenity"? 
The  "sweet  serenities"  of  the  hills.  The  highest 
hilltops  are  the  quietest,  so  is  there  calm  in  the 
altitude  of  lofty  character.  The  "sweet  serenities" 

»D.  M.  Mulock. 


SEEING  THE  BLUE  IN  THE  SKY  105 

of  love.  Modern  life  is  such  a  noisy  thing.  It 
is  a  wonder  that  young  people  can  fall  in  love 
with  such  disturbing  noises  everywhere.  When  we 
select  our  homes  we  should  choose  a  quiet  street. 
The  trolley,  the  telephone,  the  automobile  are 
such  disquieting  things.  No  wonder  love  now 
and  then  has  a  hard  time  in  the  homes  where 
there  is  so  much  confusion — so  much  buzzing.  I 
tried  to  make  my  sermons  for  five  years  with  the 
continuous  roar  of  an  elevated  railroad  not  two 
hundred  feet  from  my  study  windows.  Nobody 
ever  did,  ever  can  do  his  best  in  a  ceaseless  clash 
of  discordant  sounds.  "Quietness  is  strength." 
No  wonder  Emerson  and  Hawthorne  and  Thoreau 
and  Alcott,  and  later  Trowbridge  could  unfold  a 
permanent  literature  in  the  haunts  of  peaceful 
Concord.  If  a  cruel  fate  had  placed  them  in  a 
crowded  Boston  town,  probably  their  work  would 
never  have  been  immortalized.  Genius  needs 
quietude. 

No  wonder  a  certain  business  man  of  Los 
Angeles  has  been  compelled  to  go  away  for  a  long 
'rest.  I  was  in  his  office  some  weeks  ago.  His 
windows  opened  upon  one  of  Broadway's  busiest 
corners,  and  the  tall  buildings  made  a  sounding 
board,  and  wild  tornadoes  of  noises  rolled  up 
from  the  streets  below  and  made  a  conversation 
nearly  impossible.  There  is  health  in  quietness, 
there  is  mental  tenacity  in  serenity. 

In  nature  growth  is  not  because  of  storms  but 
in  spite  of  them.  The  tornado  devastates;  the 


106        DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

flood  uproots  and  lays  waste,  but  in  the  calm  of 
day,  in  the  serenity  of  the  night,  the  mighty 
forest  trees  sink  deep  and  the  gentle  flowers  dis- 
till their  fragrant  alembics. 

In  "quietness  there  is  strength,  beauty,"  soul. 
God  made  ten  hours  of  night  that  in  the  tran- 
quillity of  sleep  man  should  soothe  his  spirit, 
smooth  out  the  furrowed  brow,  and  relax  the 
hard  lines  of  care.  The  miracle  of  balmy  sleep 
is  nature's  "sweet  restorer."  A  man  is  fit  for 
any  task  who  will  sleep  enough.  Sleep  will 
make  him 

"Serene,  and  resolute,  and  still 
And  calm  and  self-possessed."1 

"Still  waters  run  deep."  When  the  heart  is 
fathomless  hi  its  love;  when  the  brain  is  deep  and 
thoughtful;  when  the  faith  reaches  the  depths 
of  love  divine;  when  the  currents  of  life  run  in 
deep  safe  channels,  then  character  is  reaching 
some  of  its  holiest  possibilities.  The  shallow 
stream  frets  and  foams  and  in  the  thirst  of 
some  hot  sun  it  disappears.  The  mighty  Nile, 
fed  by  the  mountain  snows,  makes  its  way  through 
blistering  deserts  safely  to  the  sea.  Tranquillity 
of  soul  is  the  reward  of  close  communion  with 
the  Great  Serene  Christ  of  the  skies. 

>  Longfellow. 


VI 

THE  NEW  MINISTRY 


Bobbie  Burns  once  in  his  diary  wrote:  "If  ever  any  young 
man  in  the  vestibule  of  the  world  chance  to  throw  his  eyes  over 
these  pages,  let  him  pay  a  warm  attention  to  the  following  obser- 
vations, as  I  assure  him  that  they  are  the  fruit  of  a  poor  devil's 
dear-bought  experience.  I  have  literally,  like  that  great  poet, 
the  great  gallant,  and  by  consequence  great  fool,  Solomon, 
turned  my  eyes  to  behold  madness  and  folly;  nay,  I  have  with 
all  the  ardor  of  a  lively,  fanciful,  and  whimsical  imagination, 
shaken  hands  with  their  intoxicating  friendship.  In  the  first 
place,  let  my  pupil,  as  he  values  his  own  peace,  keep  up  a  regular 
and  warm  intercourse  with  the  Deity." 

Burns's  love  escapades  and  his  moral  lapses  were  not  because 
he  had  the  base  instincts  of  the  profligate  and  degenerate  liber- 
tine, but  because  he  lacked  self-control.  He  was  the  true  friend 
of  men  and  the  gallant  defender  of  true  womanhood,  but  his  big, 
affectionate  nature  went  astray  at  times,  because  he  did  not,  in 
his  own  words,  "keep  up  a  regular  and  warm  intercourse  with 
the  Deity." 

Bobbie  Burns's  tender  and  pathetic  exhortation  to  us  is,  "Keep 
up  a  regular  and  warm  intercourse  with  the  Deity."  As  his 
shipwrecked  bark  tragically  sinks  in  the  turbulent  tide  of  a  wild 
sea,  he  calls  back  to  us,  "Keep  up  a  regular  and  warm  inter- 
course with  the  Deity." 


CHAPTER  VI 
THE  NEW  MINISTRY 

WHILE  angels  have  occupied  a  beautifully 
conspicuous  place  in  the  administration  of  God's 
providences  in  the  past,  and  no  doubt  many 
times  appeared  in  person  to  direct  and  bless,  it 
must  be  acknowledged  that  during  the  Christian 
dispensation  there  is  no  record  that  angels  have 
personally  conferred  with  the  holy  men  and 
women  of  earth.  This  is,  no  doubt,  because  we 
are  dwelling  in  the  dispensation  of  the  Holy 
Spirit,  that  mysterious  and  sublime  Comforter 
whom  Jesus  said  he  would  send  when  he  went 
away.  Nevertheless,  if  any  person  who  has  a 
message  and  a  ministry  is  one  of  God's  angels, 
then  the  world  is  fuller  of  angels  of  God  to-day 
than  ever  before  in  all  the  years. 

When  we  read,  "He  shall  give  his  angels  charge 
over  thee  to  keep  thee,"  we  are  to  understand 
that  we  are  not  only  depending  for  guidance  and 
protection  upon  the  heavenly  host  of  angels,  but 
we  are  likewise  to  be  protected  and  guided  by 
those  persons  on  earth  who  have  a  ministry  and 
a  message  to  the  world  from  God. 

Why,  then,  is  not  the  farmer  one  of  God's 
angels,  for  with  his  industry  in  planting  and 
sowing  and  reaping  is  he  not  rendering  a  minis- 

109 


110         DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

try  to  the  physical  needs  of  mankind?  It  is  folly 
for  us  to  depend  upon  heavenly  visitants  to  supply 
us  with  food  if  we  do  not  accept  the  ministry  of 
the  faithful  farmer  who  comes  to  our  doors  with 
the  rewards  of  his  labors  to  satisfy  our  hunger. 

And  so  of  the  teacher  of  truth.  He  finds  out 
the  hidden  things  of  God  and  comes  to  the  world 
with  a  message.  It  is  equal  folly  for  us  to  expect 
some  heavenly  guest  to  come  to  us  and  reveal 
to  us  the  wonders  of  astronomy  and  chemistry 
and  philosophy  when  by  applying  our  humble 
gifts  we  can  acquire  knowledge  from  faithful 
teachers.  Are  not  these  teachers  also  God's 
angels? 

In  this  fearful  world  crisis  through  which 
civilization  and  the  divine  ideals  of  freedom  and 
justice  and  righteousness  have  been  passing,  God 
might  have  sent  skies  full  of  heavenly  armies 
to  fight  against  a  savage  autocracy,  but  he  did 
not.  However,  were  not  these  mighty  hosts  of 
magnificent  men  from  England,  Canada,  Aus- 
tralia, France,  Italy,  and  America  God's  angels 
as  they  went  forth  with  a  gallant  and  ready  minis- 
try of  military  skill? 

It  is  just  as  true  that  God  has  given  his  angels 
charge  over  us  to  keep  us  when  these  human 
armies  of  human  angels  have  willingly  responded 
to  the  call  of  God  and  duty,  as  if  militant  Michael 
had  led  a  host  out  of  the  skies  and  defeated  the 
hostile  hosts  of  -Berlin. 

And,  too,  when  disease  comes  among  us  we  are 


THE  NEW  MINISTRY  111 

not  fanatically  and  ignorantly  to  lift  our  eyes 
toward  the  skies  and  expect  heavenly  angels  to 
come  down  and  protect  or  cure.  They  do  not 
come  down  and  till  our  fields  and  harvest  the 
crops.  They  do  not  come  to  occupy  the  teachers' 
chairs  in  public  school  and  college.  They  do  not 
come  down  to  fight  our  battles  in  France  against 
the  savage  Hun.  Why  should  we  expect  that 
they  will  come  to  combat  disease  when,  under 
the  direction  of  God's  Holy  Spirit,  men  have 
gone  forth  and  made  a  study  of  the  cause  and 
cure  of  disease,  and  hi  many  cases  have  dis- 
covered absolute  specifics  against  some  diseases 
and  absolute  cures  for  other  diseases?  Are  not 
skillful  physicians  and  devoted  nurses  as  much 
God's  angels,  as  they  come  with  their  intelligent 
and  sympathetic  ministries,  as  if  Gabriel  came  out 
of  the  skies  to  touch  the  sick  and  make  them  well? 

Therefore,  when  we  are  hungry,  or  ignorant,  or 
assailed  by  a  wicked  foe,  or  ill,  or  exposed  to 
illness  or  danger,  we  must  accept  the  ministry 
and  the  message  of  those  about  us  who  are  pre- 
pared to  give  to  us  a  message  and  a  ministry  if 
we  would  have  the  care  of  God's  angels  whom  a 
kind  heavenly  Father  has  sent  to  protect  and 
bless,  comfort  and  keep  us  hi  all  our  ways. 

The  wonderful  ninety-first  psalm  must  not  be 
misunderstood.  Like  the  thirty-fifth  chapter  of 
Isaiah,  which  says,  "No  lion  shall  be  there,  nor 
any  ravenous  beast  shall  go  up  thereon,"  and 
the  eleventh  chapter  of  Isaiah,  which  declares 


112         DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

"They  shall  not  hurt  nor  destroy  in  all  my  holy 
mountain,"  the  statements  of  the  ninety-first 
psalm  are  partly  in  the  nature  of  a  prophecy,  and 
describe  the  condition  which  shall  be  enjoyed 
when  "the  earth  shall  be  full  of  the  knowledge 
of  the  Lord  as  the  waters  cover  the  sea." 

It  is  evident  that  those  who  refuse  to  plant 
and  harvest,  and  simply  trust  that  God  will  give 
his  angels  charge  over  them,  will  starve  to  death. 
And  those  who  will  not  study,  but  who  simply 
trust  God's  angels  to  give  them  intelligence,  will 
remain  in  ignorance;  and  it  is  just  as  true  that 
when  disease  is  abroad  if  we  refuse  to  accept  the 
attention  of  faithful  physicians  and  use  care,  and 
quarantine,  and  specifics,  and  other  preventives, 
and  merely  trust  that  God  will  give  his  angels 
charge  over  us  to  keep  us  in  all  our  ways,  we 
will  be  likely  to  suffer  and  die  of  epidemics  and 
malignant  diseases. 

We  are  to  pray  and  trust.  Just  as  we  trust  God 
for  water,  but  we  dig  wells  and  gather  water  in 
reservoirs,  so  in  all  other  physical  matters  we  are 
to  use  the  resources  which  a  kind  heavenly  Father 
has  deposited  hi  the  air  and  earth  and  water;  and 
some  day,  when  diseases  and  crime  and  selfishness 
are  gone  out  of  the  world — as  they  must  go  when 
Christ  comes  in  in  his  fulness — then  "there  shall 
no  evil  befall  thee,  neither  shall  any  plague  come 
nigh  thy  dwelling,"  because  all  evil  shall  have 
been  driven  out,  and  all  tragic  contagions  shall 
have  disappeared. 


THE  NEW  MINISTRY  113 

Just  so  long  as  people  are  careless,  and  poverty, 
bad  sanitation,  crime,  and  licensed  evils  are  per- 
mitted to  exist,  the  followers  of  God  will  not  be 
immune  from  suffering  and  the  good  will  suffer 
with  the  bad.  And  it  is  the  height  of  folly  simply 
to  pray  for  God's  spiritual  angels  when  God's 
human  angels  are  all  about  us  ready  to  defend 
and  minister. 

It  is  the  duty  of  all  God's  believers  to  make 
a  strong  and  steady  assault  against  the  lions  and 
the  adders  and  the  young  lions  and  the  dragons 
which  invest  society,  and  help  to  build  the  great 
highway  which  shall  be  called  "the  way  of  holi- 
ness," where  "the  redeemed  of  the  Lord  shall 
walk,"  and  where  "they  shall  obtain  joy  and 
gladness,  and  sorrow  and  sighing  shall  flee  away," 
and  "a  little  child  shall  lead  them." 

Some  of  these  victorious  days  God's  human 
angels  will  have  so  come  up  to  the  help  of  the 
Lord  against  the  mighty  that  all  wars  and  pov- 
erties and  vices  and  diseases  will  be  gone  for- 
ever from  the  habitations  of  mankind. 

There  is  no  honor  or  happiness  equal  to  being 
even  one  of  God's  most  humble  human  angels. 
I  think  more  of  Martha  than  of  her  sister  Mary, 
for  while  Mary  sat  and  dreamed  of  God's  spiritual 
angels  and  folded  her  hands  in  solemn  medita- 
tion, Martha  went  about  a  busy  ministry.  Mary 
cast  her  burden  on  the  Lord,  and,  as  Kipling  says, 
the  Lord  placed  it  upon  Martha.  Whenever 
people  in  their  misapprehensions  refuse  to  carry 


114         DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

their  own  care  some  one  else  has  to  carry  it 
for  them.  All  honor  and  praise  to  the  human 
angels  who  not  only  see  the  things  that  ought 
to  be  done,  but  who  go  forward  to  do  them. 

One  afternoon  at  a  hospital  recently  I  was 
greeted  by  one  of  the  capable  and  successful 
young  doctors  of  the  city.  He  was  big,  strong, 
jovial,  happy  in  his  skillful  ministries  to  his  many 
patients.  One  week  from  that  time  he  fell  a 
victim  to  the  prevailing  disease,  and  a  little  wife 
and  her  baby,  and  many  little  mothers  and  their 
babies  will  miss  the  love  and  the  tender  ministries 
of  a  beloved  husband  and  an  attentive  physician. 
I  think  that  when  that  noble  fellow  appeared  in 
the  skies  he  was  given  the  rich  reward  of  being 
one  of  God's  human  angels. 

And  in  a  thousand  years  the  stain  of  brutality 
which  indelibly  disgraces  German  militarism  can 
never  be  wiped  out  as  the  story  of  the  martyr- 
dom of  the  trained  nurse,  gentle,  fearless,  beauti- 
ful Edith  Cavell,  is  told  and  retold.  She  was 
one  of  God's  human  angels  to  take  her  immortal 
place  beside  Florence  Nightingale,  "the  angel 
of  the  Crimea."  Her  last  words  before  those 
cruel  demons  shot  were:  "I  see  now  that  patriot- 
ism is  not  enough;  I  must  die  without  hatred  or 
bitterness  toward  anyone.  I  can  do  all  things 
through  Christ  which  strengthened  me." 

And  when  the  Hun  was  devastating  innocent 
and  helpless  Belgium  was  not  the  faithful  priest 
a  holy  human  angel  as  he  remained  to  plead  and 


THE  NEW  MINISTRY  115 

suffer,  not  forsaking  his  post  even  when  he  re- 
ceived word  from  the  Vatican  that  the  pope 
could  do  nothing  for  the  afflicted  Roman  Catholics 
of  Flanders?  Most  unenviable,  indeed,  to-day  is 
the  relation  of  the  Holy  See  to  the  great  world 
crisis.  The  huge,  autocratic,  ecclesiastical  organ- 
ization which  refused  to  go  to  the  help  of  suffer- 
ing Belgium  will  not  find  a  recovering  humanity 
asking  for  help  in  the  mighty  movements  of 
world  reconstruction.  With  military  autocracy 
gone  from  Germany  and  Europe,  ecclesiastical 
autocracy  will  not  long  be  tolerated  in  Europe  and 
the  world.  The  neutrality  of  the  Roman  pontiff 
in  the  hours  when  religion  and  justice  and  right- 
eousness were  hanging  in  the  balance  was  ecclesi- 
asticism's  unpardonable  sin.  The  fetish  of  papal 
infallibility  is  both  pitiful  and  ludicrous,  but 
Father  Mercier  was  one  of  God's  human  an- 
gels. 

And  what  shall  be  said  of  those  human  angels 
who,  as  loving  parents,  bring  to  the  home  then* 
tender  ministries  and  messages?  After  one  of 
those  fearful  attacks  upon  our  American  boys  at 
the  front,  when  our  line  stood  firm  although  many 
brave  lads  were  killed  and  wounded,  John  R. 
Mott  said  to  General  Edwards:  "General,  how  do 
you  explain  it?  How  is  it  possible  for  these  boys 
to  come  from  their  peaceful  homes  right  into 
the  teeth  of  such  a  terrible  experience,  and  to 
stand  up  before  it  like  veterans?" 

And  the  gallant  soldier  promptly  replied:  "Mr. 


116        DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

Mott,  it  is  very  simple.    I  give  all  the  credit  to 
the  influence  of  the  American  mother." 

Even  so,  the  boys  of  the  American  army  real- 
ized that  they  were  fighting  not  only  to  protect 
but  to  fulfill  the  ideals  and  expectations  of  their 
mothers.  This  war  was,  hi  a  way  unknown  be- 
fore to  history,  a  mother's  war.  The  Prussian 
made  his  war  upon  the  home  and  the  mother- 
hood of  Belgium  and  France,  and  the  men  in  the 
Allied  armies  fought  to  defend  the  homes  and  the 
mothers  of  the  world,  and  to  punish  those  who 
brought  suffering  upon  mothers  and  their  children. 

"He  was  a  little  Belgian  lad 

Whom  war  had  somehow  failed  to  mar, 

Almost  a  baby  face  he  had, 

Bewildered  now  and  vaguely  sad. 

'Where  are  you  going  in  the  wind  and  rain? 
And  must  you  travel  far?' 

He  said,  'I've  started  out  to  find 
The  country  where  the  mothers  are.'  "* 

Gipsy  Smith  went  from  England  to  comfort  and 
inspire  the  brave  British  boys.  One  day  the 
order  came  to  go  "over  the  top."  Gipsy  knew  the 
boys  personally  and  then*  fathers  and  mothers 
and  wives  and  children  at  home;  and  just  before 
the  command  was  executed,  they  all  knelt  to- 
gether and  he  prayed  for  them  and  for  the  great 
cause  for  which  they  were  fighting.  And  away 
they  went  in  a  storm  of  shrapnel  and  through 
the  barbed  wire  entanglements.  It  was  a  deadly 
battle — a  fearful  shamble. 

1  Grace  Hazard  Conklin. 


THE  NEW  MINISTRY  117 

When  those  who  survived  came  back,  Gipsy 
was  waiting  for  them,  and  he  tells  the  story: 
"As  they  were  coming  back  there  was  a  lad  on  a 
stretcher  with  his  face  soaked  with  blood.  I  knew 
his  mother,  and  I  thought  of  what  she  would  have 
done.  I  stooped  and  J!  kissed  his  bloody  face,  hi 
memory  of  the  mother.  I  said  to  the  attendants, 
'How  bruised  and  shattered  his  head  is!'  I 
thought  the  lad  was  too  far  gone  to  understand. 
But  he  not  only  understood,  he  recognized  my 
voice.  He  said,  'Gipsy,  am  I  going  to  Blighty, 
or  am  I  going  West?'  And  I  told  him  the  truth. 
'Son,  you  are  going  West.'  He  was  quiet  for  a 
moment,  and  then  he  managed  to  speak  so  that 
I  could  hear  him,  and  he  said  in  short  whispering 
gasps:  'Tell  Mother  I  am  not  afraid  to  die.  Tell 
her  I  have  found  Christ.  Tell  her  it  is  glorious 
to  die  for  liberty.'  He  had  not  failed  his  mother, 
his  country,  or  his  God." 

It  is  not  hard  for  me  to  believe  that  Gipsy 
Smith  was  one  of  God's  angels  that  day,  as  he 
ministered  to  that  dying  boy,  and  tenderly  kissed 
him  in  behalf  of  the  little  mother  at  home. 

One  radiant  California  afternoon  my  pastoral 
duties  called  me  out  of  my  study,  and  in  driving 
along  an  open  part  of  the  city  I  saw  a  tiny  lad 
with  his  kite  hi  his  hand  leave  his  cozy  cottage 
home,  and  as  he  departed  he  called  back  "Good- 
by,  mother!"  and  with  exquisite  tenderness  a 
gracious  young  woman  replied,  "Good-by,  my  son; 
be  careful!"  And  the  little  man  went  off  to  his 


118         DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

happy  play;  and  "Good-by,  mother!"  and  the 
beautiful  scene  of  the  mother  and  her  picturesque 
little  home  lingered  with  me.  And  as  the  years 
come  and  go  wherever  that  noble  boy  shall  wan- 
der in  the  flying  of  his  kite  of  ambition  and  duty, 
those  loving  words  will  follow  him — "Good-by,  my 
son;  be  careful!"  And  no  seas  will  be  boisterous 
enough,  and  no  storms  thunderous  enough,  and 
no  barrage  of  battle  with  its  terrific  uproar  will  be 
loud  enough  to  drown  the  soft  accents  of  that 
sweetest  of  all  voices — "Good-by,  my  son;  be 
careful!"  And,  perhaps,  some  day,  in  the  long 
distant  future,  when  the  mother  is  helpless  with 
infirmity,  she  will  wholly  and  trustfully  lean  upon 
the  strong  arm  and  the  loving  heart  of  that  child 
to  full  manhood  grown.  And  some  unexpected 
day  she  will  glide  away  upon  a  quiet  sea,  and  out 
of  the  golden  glory  of  the  sunset  hour  she  will 
again  call  back  to  him,  "Good-by,  my  son;  be 
careful!"  A  mother  divine,  God's  most  perfect 
creation — one  of  God's  angels. 

"He  shall  give  his  angels  charge  over  thee, 
To  keep  thee  in  all  thy  ways!" 

As  in  the  past,  so  hi  the  New  Day  God  must 
needs  depend  upon  his  happy  human  angels. 


VII 
MONUMENTS 


Thou,  in  our  wonder  and  astonishment, 
Hast  built  thyself  a  life-long  monument. 

— Milton's  Epitaph  to  Shakespeare. 

Monuments!  what  are  they?  the  very  pyramids  have  for- 
gotten their  builders,  or  to  whom  they  were  dedicated.  Deeds, 
not  stones,  are  the  true  monuments  of  the  great. — Motley. 

There  is  great  incongruity  in  this  idea  of  monuments,  since 
those  to  whom  they  are  usually  dedicated  need  no  such  recog- 
nition to  embalm  their  memory;  and  any  man  who  does,  is  not 
worthy  of  one. — Hawthorne. 


CHAPTER  VII 
MONUMENTS 

ONE  day,  with  my  heart  filled  with  surging 
emotions  and  tragic  memories,  I  stood  by  the 
glistening  memorial  to  William  McKinley  which 
the  sympathetic  citizens  of  Buffalo  have  erected 
at  an  advantageous  point  where  many  streets 
converge.  There  it  stands  in  marble  beauty, 
pointing  its  finger  to  the  skies,  a  token  of  the  pure 
character  of  a  martyr  to  liberty,  and  likewise  of 
the  place  where  his  white  soul  dwells  in  eternal 
mansions. 

The  custom  of  rearing  monuments  to  com- 
memorate important  historical  events,  and  as 
grateful  memorials  to  personal  courage  and  char- 
acter and  achievement,  is  most  ancient. 

Jacob,  after  his  notable  night  and  vision  at 
Bethel,  where  he  discovered  God  in  an  unexpected 
place,  and  found  the  very  gate  of  heaven,  erected 
a  pillar  to  mark  the  event  and  the  spot. 

When  the  children  of  Israel  passed  over  the 
Jordan  dry  shod,  they  built  a  monument  of  twelve 
stones,  representing  the  twelve  tribes,  to  com- 
memorate the  fact  that  God  had  wrought  a 
great  miracle  in  order  to  deliver  his  chosen  peo- 
ple. 

Poor  recalcitrant  and  disobedient  Absalom,  fear- 

121 


122        DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

ing  that  "no  one  would  keep  his  name  in  remem- 
brance," erected  a  monument  to  himself  in  the 
king's  dale,  where  it  still  stands;  and  for  hundreds 
of  years  it  has  been  the  custom  for  each  passer-by 
to  pick  up  a  stone  and  hurl  it  at  the  tomb  to  show 
his  contempt  for  the  character  of  this  handsome 
ingrate. 

When  beautiful  Rachel's  life  went  out  at  the 
birth  of  Benjamin,  Jacob  erected  a  costly  and 
graceful  pillar  over  her  precious  dust. 

The  highways  of  civilization  are  marked  with 
arches,  pillars,  obelisks,  pyramids,  and  tablets  of 
marble  and  bronze.  Among  prehistoric  peoples 
sepulchral  mounds  were  constructed  called  tumuli, 
and  are  found  to-day  in  many  parts  of  America, 
Asia,  and  Africa. 

At  Heliopolis  the  ancient  Egyptians  erected  a 
Temple  to  the  Sun  and  a  group  of  obelisks  which 
lifted  their  pink  granite  fingers  like  sun's  rays 
toward  the  skies  and  were  covered  with  strange 
hieroglyphics.  They  have  been  called  Cleo- 
patra's Needles  and  have  been  removed  to  differ- 
ent parts  of  the  world,  one  having  been  placed  in 
Central  Park,  New  York  city.  Only  one  obelisk 
has  been  left  standing  at  the  site  of  the  ancient 
temple.  It  is  surrounded  by  the  stubble  of  an 
unfertile  grain  field,  and  not  far  away  is  a  miser- 
able village  whose  inhabitants  eke  out  a  scanty 
subsistence  from  the  baksheesh  of  the  not  often 
liberal  tourists. 

In  the  year  B.  C.  353  King  Mausolus  at  Hali- 


MONUMENTS  123 

carnassus  commenced  a  massive  memorial,  thus 
giving  his  own  name  to  the  mausoleums  of  modern 
times.  It  was  completed  after  his  death  by  Arte- 
mesia,  his  wife.  Scopas  and  other  great  sculptors 
and  architects  immortalized  themselves  in  this 
colossal  structure,  which  came  to  be  known  as  one 
of  the  Seven  Wonders  of  the  World.  To-day 
only  bits  of  the  frieze  of  this  remarkable  edifice 
remain  and  may  be  seen  in  the  British  Museum. 
In  making  excavations  a  few  centuries  ago  beauti- 
ful colored  marbles  and  elaborately  carved  col- 
umns were  found,  but  these  invaluable  treasures 
were  heedlessly  used  for  making  lime  by  the  ignor- 
ant natives. 

How  short-lived,  indeed,  is  the  influence  of  that 
nation  which  depends  upon  its  material  grandeur 
and  superstructures  to  influence  succeeding  gen- 
erations! 

In  1799  there  was  found  in  northern  Egypt  a 
treasure  of  great  importance  to  the  scholars.  It 
is  called  the  Rosetta  Stone  and  bears  upon  its  sur- 
face parallel  inscriptions  in  Egyptian  hieroglyph- 
ics and  in  the  Greek.  By  means  of  the  Rosetta 
Stone  a  key  was  found  to  the  hieroglyphics  which 
until  this  great  discovery  had  baffled  the  efforts  of 
the  most  brilliant  students,  and  they  were  en- 
abled to  add  much  to  the  verified  history  of  these 
ancient  peoples.  But  among  all  of  the  memorial 
stones  of  other  generations  none  contributed  so 
much  to  the  learning  of  the  years  as  the  Moabite 
Stone,  which  was  found  in  1868  near  Dhiban,  east 


124        DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

of  the  Jordan.  The  Moabite  stone  was  erected 
by  Mesha,  king  of  Moab,  B.  C.  900,  in  commemo- 
ration of  his  deliverance  from  the  Israelites.  This 
story  is  engraved  on  the  stone,  and  is  not  only  the 
oldest  monument  of  the  Semitic  alphabet,  but  it 
clearly  confirms  the  Bible  history  as  recorded  in 
the  book  of  the  Kings.  Next  to  the  testimony  of 
eyewitnesses,  monumental  evidence  is  considered 
the  strongest. 

The  most  remarkable  and  colossal  monument 
on  the  earth  to-day  is  the  Great  Pyramid  of  Egypt, 
built  by  Cheops  in  the  year  2800  before  Christ. 
There  it  stands  defying  the  ravages  of  the  tooth  of 
time,  and  mutely  telling  of  the  gigantic  enterprise 
of  a  bygone  age.  Isaiah  is  supposed  to  refer  to 
it  when  in  the  nineteenth  chapter  of  his  prophecy 
he  says:  "In  that  day  shall  there  be  an  altar  to 
the  Lord  in  the  midst  of  the  land  of  Egypt,  and  a 
pillar  at  the  border  thereof  to  the  Lord.  And  it 
shall  be  for  a  sign  and  for  a  witness  unto  the  Lord 
of  hosts  hi  the  land  of  Egypt;  for  they  shall  cry 
unto  the  Lord  because  of  the  oppressors,  and  he 
shall  send  them  a  saviour,  and  a  great  one,  and 
he  shall  deliver  them." 

This  remarkable  structure  covers  thirteen  acres, 
and  its  slant  height  reaching  to  an  apex  is  more 
than  five  hundred  feet.  It  is  still  a  problem  to 
architects  to  know  how  this  massive  pile  was  con- 
structed, for  it  is  known  that  the  quarries  were 
many  miles  distant.  Multitudes  of  workmen 
must  have  been  engaged  for  an  indefinite  tune; 


MONUMENTS  125 

and  without  steam  and  modern  appliances  they 
were  able  to  lift  the  heaviest  blocks  of  stone  and 
granite.  It  seems  to  have  rendered  a  double  pur- 
pose. Its  grand  gallery  would  appear  to  indicate 
that  provision  for  a  telescope  had  entered  into  its 
construction  and  had  been  used  for  astronomical 
observations,  and  after  the  death  of  the  builder  it 
was  to  serve  as  a  tomb  for  himself  and  his  queen, 
as  there  are  two  chambers  deep  hi  the  heart  of 
the  structure,  in  one  of  which  there  still  remains  a 
sarcophagus. 

The  most  exquisite  memorial  in  the  world  is  the 
Taj  Mahal,  in  Agra,  India.  It  was  built  hi  1629 
as  a  mausoleum  by  the  Shah  Jehan,  in  memory  of 
his  favorite  wife,  at  the  fabulous  cost  of  ?  50, 000,- 
000.  It  is  constructed  of  white  marble  and  is  em- 
bellished with  numberless  delicate  and  intricate 
designs;  and  justifies,  indeed,  the  definition  of 
some  rapturous  poet  that  such  "architecture  is 
frozen  music." 

The  word  "monument"  is  derived  from  the 
Latin  "monere,"  which  means  to  warn  and  to  ad- 
monish. Nations  erect  monuments  to  the  mem- 
ory of  men  who  have  become  the  incarnation  of 
the  ideals  of  a  generation.  Every  great  man  is  a 
resultant.  As  the  mountains  rest  upon  the  foot- 
hills, so  do  great  men  depend  for  then*  lofty 
stature  upon  the  multitudes  of  humble  men  upon 
whose  shoulders  they  stand.  A  man  becomes 
great  when  he  is  able  to  incorporate  in  himself  and 
in  his  actions  and  utterances  the  dreams  and 


126        DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

visions  of  those  who  have  preceded  him  and  are 
contemporaneous  with  him.  A  man  is  great  when 
he  becomes  the  spokesman  of  a  mighty  truth  which 
the  multitudes  are  feeling  and  believing. 

All  great  reforms  commence  with  the  common 
people,  among  the  humble  and  unknown.  The 
pioneer  comes  out  of  the  lower  strata  of  society. 
At  first  he  is  ridiculed  and  often  put  to  death,  but 
the  truth  for  which  he  suffers  survives  him,  and 
some  one  else  seizes  the  torch  from  his  faltering 
hand;  but  the  John  Browns  and  the  Lovejoys  and 
the  Garrisons  are  always  followed  by  the  Wilber- 
forces  and  the  Lincolns.  The  pioneers  do  not 
usually  have  the  monuments — the  humble  people 
are  forgotten;  but  when  the  monuments  are  un- 
veiled to  the  Lincolns,  and  the  praises  of  the  Lin- 
colns are  being  sung  throughout  the  land,  the  true 
student  of  events  knows  that  as  the  greater  always 
includes  the  lesser,  so  every  word  spoken  or  sung 
in  praise  of  the  Lincolns  is  a  word  of  acknowledg- 
ment and  appreciation  of  the  Garrisons  and  the 
Lovejoys  and  the  John  Browns,  without  whom  the 
Lincolns  would  have  been  impossible. 

Any  man  who  is  to-day  valiantly  defending  his 
convictions  and  ideals,  however  humble  he  may 
be,  is  contributing  his  modest  part  to  a  condition 
which  later  will  find  expression  and  crystalliza- 
tion in  some  man  or  group  of  men  who  will  carry 
these  ideals  and  convictions  to  their  inevitable 
and  glorious  fruition.  We  call  a  man  a  great  man 
and  build  a  monument  to  his  memory  when  he  has 


MONUMENTS  127 

gathered  into  his  own  heart  and  life  and  person- 
ality the  ideals  of  his  age. 

That  is,  therefore,  the  true  meaning  of  Wash- 
ington's Monument  in  Washington,  D.  C.;  of  the 
Faith  monument  at  Plymouth;  of  the  Pillar  at 
Bunker  Hill;  of  Grant's  Tomb  on  the  Hudson;  of 
the  glistening  memorials  to  Lee  and  Jefferson 
Davis  in  Richmond;  of  General  Jackson  in  New 
Orleans;  of  Daniel  Webster  hi  Washington;  of 
Lincoln  at  Springfield;  of  Farragut  in  Madison 
Square  and  of  General  Sherman  in  Central  Park, 
New  York;  of  St.  Gaudens's  bas-relief  of  Robert 
Gould  Shaw  in  Boston,  and  -of  Frances  Willard  hi 
the  nation's  capital. 

There  are  three  notable  monuments  to  very 
humble  women  in  the  world.  One  is  in  New 
Orleans.  It  is  a  monument  to  Margaret.  She 
was  a  baker  and  she  is  represented  hi  the  marble 
as  sitting  in  her  old  fashioned  rocking-chair.  She 
always  maintained  her  humble  dress  and  manners 
and  methods  of  living.  She  amassed  a  fortune, 
all  of  which  was  left  to  the  orphans  of  New 
Orleans. 

In  Edinburgh,  Scotland,  is  a  beautiful  testi- 
monial to  Catharine  St.  Clair.  She  served  the 
poor  and  never  dreamed  that  she  was  great.  After 
a  life  of  unselfish  devotion  she  went  up  to  her  coro- 
nation, and  a  grateful  people  erected  a  monument 
to  her  memory,  and  no  one  was  permitted  to  give 
more  than  a  six-pence. 

The  other  of  these  three  monuments   is  to 


128         DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

Mary  Jones.  It  stands  in  the  midst  of  the  ruins 
of  the  cottage  in  which  she  lived  in  Wales,  and 
bears  the  inscription:  "In  memory  of  Mary  Jones, 
who  in  the  year  1800  at  the  age  of  18  walked  from 
here  to  Belo  to  procure  a  copy  of  a  Welsh  Bible. 
This  incident  was  the  occasion  of  the  organiza- 
tion of  the  British  and  Foreign  Bible  Society." 
This  monument  was  erected  by  the  Sunday 
school  scholars.  You  will  remember  that  this 
little  girl  found  after  her  long  journey  that  there 
were  no  more  Bibles  for  distribution,  and  re- 
turned sadly  to  her  home. 

On  September  30,  1907,  the  McKinley  Mauso- 
leum was  dedicated  at  Canton,  Ohio,  with  im- 
posing ceremonies.  Over  one  million  people  con- 
tributed to  the  six  hundred  thousand  dollars 
which  was  the  cost  of  this  beautiful  memorial. 
It  bears  two  inscriptions,  one  of  which  is  taken 
from  his  last  speech  in  Buffalo: 

"Let  us  ever  remember  that  our  interest  is  in 
concord,  not  conflict,  and  that  our  real  eminence 
rests  in  the  victories  of  peace,  not  those  of  war." 

The  other  inscription  is  as  follows: 

"Wm.  McKinley,  President  of  the  United 
States;  a  statesman,  singularly  gifted  to  unite 
the  discordant  forces  of  government,  and  mould 
the  diverse  purposes  of  men  toward  progressive 
and  salutary  action;  a  magistrate  whose  poise  of 
judgment  was  tested  and  vindicated  in  a  succes- 
sion of  national  emergencies;  a  good  citizen,  brave 
soldier,  wise  executive,  helper  and  leader  of  men, 


MONUMENTS  129 

exemplar  to  his  people  of  the  virtues  that  build 
and  conserve  the  state,  society,  and  the  home." 

There  is  another  kind  of  monument  far  more 
important  than  these  which  are  constructed  of 
granite  and  bronze,  and  referred  to  by  our  Lord 
when  he  said  of  Mary:  "This  that  she  hath  done 
shall  be  spoken  of  as  a  memorial  of  her."  It  is 
the  monument  of  deeds. 

"Go  put  your  creed  into  your  deeds,"  said 
Emerson;  and  Horace  in  one  of  his  immortal  odes 
sang: 

"I've  reared  a  monument  alone 
More  durable  than  brass  or  stone, 
Whose  cloudy  summit  is  more  hid 
Than  regal  height  of  pyramid — 
I  shall  not  surely  die!" 

Deeds  build  imperishable  monuments.  Un- 
merited monuments  will  fall  sooner  or  later  into 
ruins;  and  what  is  more  pathetic  than  a  monu- 
ment which  has  survived  the  memory  of  the 
name  upon  it?  Pliny  the  Younger  wrote:  "The 
erection  of  a  monument  is  superfluous;  the  memory 
of  us  will  last  if  we  have  deserved  it  in  our  lives." 

When  one  has  spent  several  hours  in  Saint 
Paul's  magnificent  minster  in  London,  and  with 
increasing  wonder  has  honored  the  noble  skill 
of  the  great  architect  who  suspended  this  massive 
dome  between  heaven  and  earth,  his  admiration 
for  the  modest  builder  will  substantially  increase 
when  far  down  in  the  floor  of  the  crypt  of  the 
cathedral,  upon  a  slab  under  his  feet,  he  finds 


130         DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

the  name  of  Christopher  Wren  and  the  simple 
inscription  over  his  dust,  "Si  Monumentum 
requiris  circumspice" — "If  you  would  seek  his 
monument,  look  about  you." 

In  these  after-war  days,  when  monuments  are 
being  projected  and  erected  to  commemorate  the 
valor  of  American  soldiers,  we  may  recall  the 
remark  of  Napoleon,  "Brave  deeds  are  the  mon- 
uments of  brave  men." 

If  a  man's  deeds  are  not  his  greatest  monument, 
then  no  pillar  of  granite  can  give  him  true  immor- 
tality. We  are  immortal  till  our  work  is  done; 
and  a  man's  work  is  not  done  so  long  as  the  influ- 
ence of  his  deeds  abides. 

"Virtue  alone  outbuilds  the  pyramids, 
Her  monuments  shall  last  when  Egypt's  fall." 

Contrast  with  the  monuments  of  noble  deeds 
those  monuments  which  men  build  for  themselves 
because  they  are  sure  their  fellow  men  will  never 
give  them  such  recognition.  Such  monuments 
are  not  honored  memorials,  but  danger  signals 
placed  upon  the  edges  of  the  dizzy  precipices  of 
vanity  and  egotism.  Such  monuments  will  al- 
ways be  treated  with  contemptuous  disregard. 
There  is  such  a  monument  in  a  beautiful  cemetery 
in  Oakland,  California.  It  was  built  by  a  rich 
egotist  before  he  died,  and  it  is  a  dismal  reminder 
to  all  who  pass  by  of  the  inordinate  self-adoration 
of  a  weak  and  vain  creature. 

A  grateful  posterity  will  not  forget  its  true  bene- 


MONUMENTS  131 

factors,  and  a  discriminating  posterity  will  not 
remember  unworthy  ancestors,  though  their  names 
and  figures  should  be  carved  out  of  granite  moun- 
tains. The  wise  Cato  said,  "I  would  rather  men 
would  ask  why  my  statue  is  not  set  up  than  why 
it  is."  Indeed,  reading  and  observation  make  it 
evident  that  those  who  do  not  feel  themselves 
worthy  of  monuments  are  those  whose  memory  is 
kept  green  by  a  grateful  future. 

In  Geneva,  Switzerland,  is  a  colossal  equestrian 
statue  of  the  Duke  of  Burgundy,  who  condi- 
tioned large  gifts  to  the  city  provided  the  citizens 
should  erect  this  very  ostentatious  monument. 
Not  far  away  in  a  modest  graveyard  is  a  plain  slab 
marked  "J.  C."  Here  lies  the  dust  of  John  Cal- 
vin, the  great  Swiss  reformer  and  theologian,  and 
one  of  the  heroic  builders  of  the  Christian  Church. 
Deeds,  noble  deeds  were  Calvin's  greatest  me- 
morials. 

How  often  God  makes  the  wrath  of  men  to 
praise  him  is  forcibly  illustrated  in  the  little  town 
of  Aosta  in  a  valley  of  Switzerland  hi  sight  of 
Mont  Blanc  and  the  Matterhorn.  Here  Calvin 
failed  to  establish  the  theocratic  government  which 
five  years  later  was  in  successful  operation  in 
Geneva.  And,  in  passing,  let  us  remind  our- 
selves that  our  fathers  borrowed  many  of  the 
ideas  of  our  American  republic  from  the  successful 
experiments  of  John  Calvin  in  his  republic  in 
Geneva.  In  this  town  of  Aosta,  in  the  middle  of 
a  narrow  thoroughfare,  his  implacable  enemies 


132         DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

placed  a  small  monument  which  bears  the  strange 
inscription  that  it  was  erected  to  commemorate 
the  failure  of  John  Calvin  to  introduce  Protes- 
tantism into  Italy.  They  crowded  Calvin  out  of 
Aosta  as  his  bitter  foes  drove  Jesus  out  of  Caper- 
naum; and  as  Capernaum  is  in  ignominious  ruins 
to-day  so  would  Aosta  be  unknown  save  as  it  is 
associated  with  the  mistreatment  of  the  great 
reformer. 

There  is  another  monument,  however,  to  Calvin 
in  Aosta.  It  is  unique  and  perhaps  the  most  pic- 
turesque in  the  world.  There  is  an  uncomfort- 
able wind  that  blows  in  the  valley  of  Aosta  every 
day,  rising  regularly  at  eleven  o'clock  and  lasting 
until  four  in  the  afternoon.  Four  hundred  years 
ago  the  people,  to  disparage  the  great  teacher 
whom  they  would  not  receive,  called  it  "Calvin's 
wind."  This  strange  ethereal  and  invisible  me- 
morial has  lasted  through  these  hurrying  centuries; 
and  by  a  singular  irony  of  fate  will  continue  as 
long  as  the  valley  of  Aosta  is  populated,  to  per- 
petuate the  name  and  memory  of  a  man  whose  dis- 
dainful contemporaries  sought  to  consign  to  early 
contumely  and  everlasting  oblivion.  This  is  a 
half-facetious  application  of  an  old  adage,  "The 
winds  and  the  waves  are  always  on  the  side  of  the 
ablest  navigators." 

Deeds  are  the  only  enduring  memorials.  Deeds ! 
Deeds!  A  deed  begun  is  half-done. 

A  few  years  ago1  a  letter  appeared  in  the  Century 

» December,  1886. 


MONUMENTS  133 

Magazine  from  E.  W.  Whitney  complaining  that 
the  nation  had  never  erected  a  monument  to  his 
illustrious  father,  who  had  invented  the  cotton-gin. 
The  son  need  not  suffer  alarm.  Eli  Whitney  has 
an  imperishable  name  more  enduring  than  a  statue 
of  bronze.  He  was  one  of  the  greatest  benefac- 
tors of  the  South.  By  his  machine  instead  of  one 
pound  of  cotton  a  day  by  hand,  fifty  pounds  could 
be  cleaned.  His  invention  enriched  England  and 
made  the  South  financially  and  commercially. 

The  great  historian  Macaulay  wrote:  "What 
Peter  the  Great  did  to  make  Russia  dominant,  Eli 
Whitney's  invention  of  the  cotton-gin  has  more 
than  equaled  hi  its  relation  to  the  power  and  the 
progress  of  the  United  States."  For  instance,  hi 
1790  thirty  millions  pounds  of  raw  cotton  were 
sent  to  England,  while  hi  1860,  seventy  years 
later,  one  thousand  million  pounds  were  shipped. 
In  1790  a  field-hand  slave  was  worth  only  two 
hundred  and  fifty  dollars,  and  in  1860  he  was 
worth  one  thousand  six  hundred  dollars. 

I  have  no  objection  to  some  material  monument 
to  Eli  Whitney,  but  his  place  is  forever  assured  in 
memorials  of  gratitude  which  are  permanent  and 
imperishable. 

At  the  close  of  the  Civil  War  General  Armstrong 
was  placed  in  charge  of  a  company  of  Negroes  who 
were  contrabands  of  war,  and  he  began  to  teach 
these  colored  people  how  to  work  out  their  own 
salvation.  It  was  a  prodigious  task.  He  was 
laughed  at  by  the  whites  and  execrated  by  the 


134         DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

blacks;  but  on  he  went,  taking  as  his  motto, 
"Doing  what  cannot  be  done  is  the  glory  of  living." 
He  died  of  overwork  all  too  soon,  and  in  his  diary 
were  found  the  words:  "I  have  never  known  what 
self-sacrifice  means."  One  day  a  raw-boned  but 
industrious  Negro  lad  came  to  Hampton  and  fell 
under  the  influence  of  this  great  man;  and  General 
Armstrong  lived  again  hi  the  notable  career  of 
Booker  T.  Washington. 

On  one  of  America's  historic  battlefields  is  an 
imposing  monument  standing  near  the  point  of 
surrender,  and  rising  to  a  height  of  nearly  two 
hundred  feet.  A  mile  away  the  beautiful,  deep- 
blue  Hudson  flows  majestically  toward  the  sea, 
and  all  about  the  massive  granite  pile  lies  the  his- 
toric battlefield.  To  be  sure,  "the  smoke  that 
hung  upon  the  hills  of  Saratoga's  battlefield  on 
that  sad,  autumn  day  has  lifted  long  ago  and 
healing  grasses  grow  hi  those  deep  gashes  cut  by 
shot  and  cannon  balls.  Now  the  wild  plum 
blooms  on  those  green  hills  and  robins  sing  their 
roundelays  among  the  apple  boughs.  The  grass  is 
fresh  with  summer  rain  and  wild  flowers  bloom  in 
that  same  soil  which  was  wet  with  human  blood."1 

From  the  monument  comes  a  most  striking  and 
impressive  lesson.  Just  above  the  entrances  on 
the  four  sides  of  the  monument  are  four  niches 
provided  for  fine  bronze  statues  of  heroic  size  of 
the  victors  of  that  memorable  battle  of  Saratoga. 
In  the  niche  facing  the  east  is  the  statue  of  General 

>  Charles  Coke  Woods. 


MONUMENTS  135 

Philip  Schuyler — Schuyler,  of  whom  it  has  been 
said  that  "General  Gates  never  would  have  cap- 
tured Burgoyne  had  he  not  followed  the  plans  of 
General  Schuyler  and  taken  his  advice."  Looking 
toward  the  west  is  General  Daniel  Morgan,  and 
facing  the  north  is  General  Horatio  Gates. 

There  is  a  fourth  niche  facing  the  south,  but  it 
is  empty.  It  should  have  been  occupied  by  one 
whose  brilliant  deeds  helped  to  make  the  victory 
at  Saratoga  possible.  Indeed,  the  niche  faces  the 
scenes  of  his  most  heroic  achievements.  But  the 
niche  is  empty,  "save  as  spiders  spin  their  tangled 
webs  among  its  sullen  shadows" — empty  because 
one  of  the  heroes  of  Saratoga  later  became  a 
betrayer  of  his  country.  The  brave  soldier  who 
was  nearly  fatally  wounded  at  Saratoga  lived  to 
strike  a  remorseless  blow  at  his  country's  weal, 
and  Benedict  Arnold's  niche  is  forever  unoccupied. 

It  is  possible  for  men  who  have  nobly  achieved 
to  come  to  some  sad,  subsequent  day  when  some 
one  deed  of  vengeance  or  of  vice  shall  with  dis- 
graceful blot  stain  back  through  all  the  leaves  of 
life  already  turned. 

As  one  stands  before  the  empty  niche  at  Sara- 
toga its  message  sinks  deep  into  the  heart.  What 
a  man  does  can  never  be  any  better  than  what  a 
man  is.  And  must  we  not  be  increasingly  on  our 
guard  against  the  temptations  which  assail  the 
man  who  has  already  enjoyed  some  of  life's  suc- 
cesses? And  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  any 
vantage  ground  of  fulfilled  ambitions  does  not 


136         DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

make  safe  any  dalliance  with  evil  in  any  of  its 
insidious  forms.  And  likewise  it  must  be  remem- 
bered that  certain  fearful  temptations  will  come 
to  men  in  middle  life  which  did  not  assail  them 
in  their  earlier  years.  Never  in  youth  or  in  ma- 
turity must  there  be  an  instant's  truce  between 
virtue  and  vice. 

"We  are  building  every  day, 
In  a  good  or  evil  way, 
And  the  structure  as  it  grows 
Must  our  inmost  self  disclose, 
Till  in  every  arch  and  line 
All  our  hidden  faults  outshine. 

"Do  you  ask  what  building  this 
That  can  show  both  pain  and  bliss, 
That  can  be  both  dark  and  fair? 
Lo!  its  name  is  Character. 
Build  it  well,  whate'er  you  do! 
Build  it  straight  and  strong  and  true, 
Build  it  clean  and  high  and  broad, 
Build  it  for  the  eye  of  God."1 

When  Ole  Bull,  the  great  Norwegian  violinist, 
was  in  this  country  he  was  assailed  by  much 
hostile  criticism.  Mr.  James  Gordon  Bennett 
offered  him  the  columns  of  the  New  York  Herald 
to  reply  to  his  traducers.  In  broken  English,  he 
thanked  the  editor,  saying,  "I  tink,  Mr.  Bennett, 
it  is  best  tey  writes  against  me,  and  I  play  against 
tern." 

Deeds!  Deeds!  Our  work  is  our  best  defense. 
If  we  bring  things  to  pass,  our  enemies  are  soon 

1  James  Buckbam. 


MONUMENTS  137 

defeated.     "Christ  never  wrote  a  tract,  but  he 
went  about  doing  good."1 

The  most  exquisite  structure  in  the  United 
States  is  the  Congressional  Library  in  Washing- 
ton, D.  C.  When  an  Indian  from  the  Western 
plains  gazed  upon  its  storied  splendor  and  dazzling 
interior,  he  reverently  asked,  "Made  by  man?". 
And  they  answered  him, 

"The  hand  of  man  hath  builded, 

But  behind  was  the  heart  of  God." 

Deeds!  Deeds!  A  boy  from  Eton  school  went 
over  to  London  and  was  appalled  by  the  squalor 
and  misery  which  everywhere  abounded.  His 
heart  went  out  especially  for  the  poor  unfor- 
tunate boys.  He  went  down  under  London 
Bridge,  and  with  him  went  two  wharf-rats  as  his 
first  scholars.  He  got  a  barrel,  and  a  board,  and 
a  couple  of  candles,  and  some  old  books,  and 
started  his  first  night  school.  And  to-day  Quin- 
ton  Hogg's  polytechnic  schools  are  all  over  Great 
Britain,  and  in  her  distant  colonies  as  well,  and 
armies  of  men  are  praising  the  name  and  holding 
sacred  the  memory  of  a  man  of  heart  and  deeds. 

An  atheist  who  spent  a  few  days  with  the  holy 
Fenelon  said,  "If  I  stay  here  much  longer,  I  shall 
be  a  Christian  in  spite  of  myself,"  and  yet  the 
saintly  man  had  not  spoken  a  word  of  solicitation. 
A  great  man  said,  "I  tried  to  be  a  skeptic  when 
a  young  man,  but  my  mother's  life  was  too 
much  for  me." 

1  Horace  Mann. 


VIII 

THE  NEW  GENTLENESS 


His  tribe  were  God  Almighty's  gentlemen. — Dryden. 

And  thus  he  bore  without  abuse 
The  grand  old  name  of  gentleman. 

— Tennyson. 

His  life  was  gentle,  and  the  elements 
So  mix'd  in  him,  that  Nature  might  stand  up 
And  say  to  all  the  world,  "This  was  a  man!" 

— Shakespeare. 


CHAPTER  VIII 
THE  NEW  GENTLENESS 

"THT  gentleness  hath  made  me  great"  are  not 
the  words  of  an  exquisitely  beautiful  woman  like 
the  mother  of  Samuel,  or  of  the  sweet  Virgin 
Mother  of  Nazareth,  whose  divine  gentleness  had 
made  them  great  hi  the  sight  of  God  and  man, 
but  they  are  the  soul  outburst  of  a  mighty  vic- 
torious warrior,  the  Grant  or  Foch  of  Israel,  even 
so  far  away  as  a  thousand  years  before  Bethle- 
hem's star  twinkled  above  the  wondering  shep- 
herds. 

It  is  told  in  the  records  of  the  history  of  Israel, 
according  to  the  Second  Book  of  Samuel,  that  the 
Philistines,  the  long-tune  enemies  of  Israel,  who 
had  been  often  defeated  but  never  exterminated, 
"had  yet  war  again"  with  the  hosts  of  the  Most 
High.  In  this  battle  not  only  was  the  army  of 
Philistia  led  forth  by  one  giant  as  when  David, 
when  only  a  shepherd  boy,  vanquished  the  gar- 
rulous giant  of  Gath,  but  in  this  conflict  even 
four  mighty  giants,  one  of  whom  was  "the  brother 
of  Goliath  the  Gittite,"  with  fiendish  vengeance 
"defied  Israel" ;  but  these  haughty  giants  one  and 
all  "fell  by  the  hand  of  David  and  by  the  hand  of 
his  servants." 

After  the  overwhelming  victory  David's  grate- 
Hi 


142         DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

ful  soul  broke  forth  in  a  tumultuous  song  of 
thanksgiving,  which  as  never  before  we  now 
appreciate,  because  we  too  are  seeking  to  ade- 
quately express  our  gratitude  to  the  Almighty 
Father  for  victories  hi  battle  which  he  vouch- 
safed to  those  who  fought  for  God  and  humanity. 

This  outburst  of  praiseful  melody  is  found  not 
only  hi  the  historic  setting  in  Samuel,  but  appears 
also  in  the  collection  of  songs  known  as  "The 
Psalms."  They  are  identical  except  for  a  few 
unimportant  verbal  discrepancies. 

It  is  a  magnificent  triumphant  ode  which 
reaches  the  dimensions  of  real  grandeur — an  im- 
passioned and  divinely  inspired  anthem  of  pro- 
phetic praise;  a  successful  effort  of  a  soul  full  of 
rapture  to  magnify  the  great  and  mighty  Jehovah. 
It  finds  a  beautiful  antithesis  in  the  Magnificat 
of  the  radiant  Virgin  Mother  when  she  sang,  ex- 
ultingly,  "My  soul  doth  magnify  the  Lord!" 

There  are  many  striking  and  artistic  lines  in 
this  masterpiece  of  the  Warrior  Poet,  such  as: 

"The  Lord  is  my  rock,  and  my  fortress,  and 
my  deliverer." 

"He  rode  upon  a  cherub,  and  did  fly; 
Yea,  he  flew  swiftly  upon  the  wings  of  the 
wind." 

"He  brought  me  forth  also  into  a  large  place." 

"For  by  thee  I  have  run  through  a  troop; 
And  by  my  God  do  I  leap  over  a  wall." 


THE  NEW  GENTLENESS  143 

In  the  midst  of  these  majestic  strains  there  is  a 
soft  refrain  which  sings  itself  into  our  memory 
and  awakens  our  ever  increasing  wonder:  "And 
thy  gentleness  hath  made  me  great."  That  is, 
great,  not  in  his  own  humble  sight,  nor  before 
the  Mighty  God  and  the  Everlasting  Father,  but 
great  in  the  eyes  of  men  who  have  beheld  his 
triumphant  victory. 

But  our  profound  interest  gathers  about  that 
marvelous  word,  which  to  even  pronounce  it — 
"gentleness" — exorcises  from  our  spirits,  and  even 
from  our  voices,  all  harshness  and  discord: 
"Gentle"— "gentleness"— "Thy  gentleness  hath 
made  me  great." 

What  is  this  mystic,  divine  quality  which  be- 
longs to  God  and  which  when  passed  over  to  man 
makes  him  useful,  and  happy,  and  victorious  as 
he  fares  forth  to  fight  the  battles  of  justice  and 
truth  and  righteousness? 

None  of  the  versions  of  the  Scriptures  are 
willing  to  displace  this  word  of  rhythm  and  of 
beauty.  Like  the  word  "charity" — "the  greatest 
of  these  is  charity" — it  belongs  unchanged  to  the 
vocabulary  of  true  greatness.  "With  thy  meek- 
ness thou  hast  multiplied  me."  We  may  seek 
their  synonyms  and  define  gentleness  as  meek- 
ness, or  condescension,  or  clemency,  or  kindness, 
and  charity  as  love,  and  dearness,  but  at  the  last 
we  come  back  and  find  our  fullest  satisfaction  hi 
the  words  themselves,  "gentleness" — "charity." 

The  completest  definition  of  gentleness  is  found 


144         DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

in  the  Man  of  Galilee — the  Son  of  Mary  and  of 
God — "Earth's  first  gentleman,"  Jesus  Christ  of 
Nazareth. 

Gentleness  is  meekness,  but  meekness  is  not 
weakness ;  it  is  strength.  Is  not  gentleness  strength 
controlled?  Moses,  we  were  taught  hi  our  child- 
hood's catechism,  was  the  meekest  of  men,  but 
was  ever  a  leader  and  administrator  so  virile 
and  brave  as  was  he;  able  to  control  the  raging 
passions  of  men,  and  hi  the  blazing  glory  of 
shaking  Sinai  to  look  even  into  the  face  of  God! 
A  man  of  mightiest  mentality,  of  stalwart  figure, 
of  unswerving  fidelity — a  man  of  vigorous  per- 
sonality, so  human,  so  divine  that  no  other  man 
has  ever  been  so  trusted  with  such  sacred  and 
profound  secrets  of  God — and  yet  among  the 
ancient  humans  he  was  the  apotheosis  of  gentle- 
ness. 

Gentleness  in  women,  a  sweet  repose  and  seren- 
ity, as  Montaigne  says,  "is  paramount  to  every- 
thing else  hi  woman."  A  masculine  woman,  with 
harsh  voice  and  manner,  is  so  anomalous  and  dis- 
tasteful that  it  awakens  the  resentment,  if  not 
the  pity,  of  the  gallant  man  who  is  given  to 
idealizing  all  women.  Woman's  most  convincing 
and  persuasive  possession  is  gentleness.  A  bril- 
liant woman  says,  "Fearless  gentleness  is  the 
most  beautiful  of  feminine  attractions  born  of 
modesty  and  love."  In  woman  the  final  conquest 
is  to  gentleness.  Women  would  have  had  their 
suffrage  rights  long  ago  if  the  early  champions 


THE  NEW  GENTLENESS  145 

of  her  political  recognition  could  have  been 
gentlewomen.  Coarse,  mannish  women  did  not 
ingratiate  the  just  cause  which  they  represented. 
After  all,  personality  is  the  most  powerful  ele- 
ment in  any  argument.  Gracious  Frances  Willard 
did  more  to  bring  about  a  right  appreciation  of 
what  should  be  woman's  social  and  political 
status  than  scores  of  ranting  and  vociferous 
women  with  masculine  stride  and  gesture  and 
vocalization,  because  she  was  the  gentle,  and  cul- 
tured, and  always  tastefully  attired  prophetess  of 
a  new  day  for  gentlewomanhood. 

And,  if  anyone  were  able  to  analyze  that  in- 
definable splendor  which  makes  the  mother 
unique  and  the  most  divine  of  all  human  beings, 
he  would  linger  long  on  the  quality  of  gentleness 
which  must  belong  to  the  purest  of  God's  celes- 
tial beings.  . 

Gentleness  as  a  quality  of  true  manliness  has 
not  always  been  looked  for  hi  men.  It  has  been 
customary  to  talk  about  men  as  wise  and  strong 
and  brave.  So  far  as  I  can  now  remember  none 
of  the  great  Greeks  or  Romans  magnified  gentle- 
ness as  a  necessity  to  complete  manhood;  but 
with  Christianity  there  came  a  new  ideal  of  the 
virile  and  valiant  man:  "A  Christian,  a  true  Chris- 
tian, is  God  Almighty's  gentleman." 

In  a  man  gentleness  is  the  complete  control  of 
strong  and  sterling  characteristics.  Gentleness  is 
character  with  a  safety  device.  The  perfection 
of  a  sixty-horse-power  engine  is  quietness — 


146         DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

gentleness.  Gentleness  in  a  Corliss  engine  or  an 
automobile  is  not  the  absence  of  power  but  the 
absolute  control  of  mighty  forces  which,  unmas- 
tered,  could  tear,  explode,  and  kill.  In  woman  it 
should  be  the  wisdom  of  gentleness,  hi  man  the 
gentleness  of  wisdom;  in  woman  the  courage  of 
gentleness,  hi  man  the  gentleness  of  courage;  in 
woman  the  virility  of  gentleness,  hi  man  the 
gentleness  of  virility;  in  woman  the  faith,  the 
hope,  the  love  of  gentleness,  hi  man  the  gentle- 
ness of  faith  and  hope  and  love.  The  difference 
between  men  and  women  is  not  in  quality  but  hi 
the  accent.  Man  must  especially  accentuate  the 
field,  the  chase,  the  forum,  the  sword,  the  pen; 
woman,  the  cradle,  the  fireside,  the  family  altar, 
the  holiest  emotions  of  the  soul. 

Just  as  woman  came  in  all  her  glorious  po- 
tentialities into  the  world  when  Jesus  came,  so 
it  is  true  that  the  world  was  four  thousand  years 
old  also  before  man  came  to  his  holiest  estate. 
Who  is  this  peasant  Prophet  who  dares  to  say 
that  "the  meek  shall  inherit  the  earth"  in  the 
face  of  the  ever-present  fact  that  it  was  Roman 
might  that  was  avowedly  declaring,  "I  have  the 
right  to  do  what  I  have  the  might  to  do,"  and 
that  had  practically  subjugated  the  whole  civil- 
ized world?  And  when  we  have  carefully  analyzed 
the  forces  which  operated  in  the  decline  and  fall 
of  the  Roman  empire,  and  the  decline  and  fall  of 
mediaeval  ecclesiasticism,  and  the  decline  and  fall 
of  the  empire  of  Napoleon,  and  the  decline  and 


THE  NEW  GENTLENESS  147 

fall  of  the  base  institution  of  human  slavery,  and 
the  decline  and  fall  of  the  unspeakable  Turk,  and 
the  infinitely  more  unspeakable  Hohenzollern;  and 
the  decline  and  fall  of  the  Hapsburgs  and  the 
Romanoffs,  and  the  decline  and  fall  of  the  bestial 
absolutism  of  King  Alcohol,  with  wonder  and 
praise  we  will  gratefully  acknowledge  that  all  of 
these  forces  have  gone  down,  and  will,  with  other 
inimical  influences,  continue  to  go  down  before 
the  advancing  steps  of  the  Prince  of  Peace,  whose 
nature  is  meekness  and  whose  scepter  is  love. 

Henry  Drummond,  the  refined  Scottish  gentle- 
man and  Christian,  to  whom,  when  her  husband 
was  dying,  a  plain  artisan  woman  felt  at  liberty 
to  send  the  message,  "Will  you  not  come  to  see 
my  husband?  I  want  him  to  have  a  breath  of 
you  aboot  him  before  he  dies,"  Henry  Drummond, 
this  man  of  atmosphere  and  power,  hi  recalling 
the  influences  which  awakened  his  noblest  self 
within  him,  says  that  "Ruskin  taught  him  to 
use  his  eyes;  that  Emerson  taught  him  to  see 
with  his  mind;  that  Channing  taught  him  to  be- 
lieve hi  God;  that  Robertson  of  Brighton  taught 
him  that  God  was  human.  Yet  all  of  them  to- 
gether could  not  teach  Drummond  the  art  of  life. 
Passing  by  all  transcripts,  however  opulent  and 
luminous,  he  sought  out  original  sources  for  him- 
self. And  behold,  he  learned  life  from  Christ, 
in  Christ,  through  Christ,  and  Christ  only.  Bor- 
rowing the  words  of  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  Drum- 
mond says:  'My  hidden  ideals  of  what  is  beautiful 


148         DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

I  have  drawn  from  Christ.  My  thoughts  of  what 
is  manly,  and  noble,  and  pure  have  almost  all 
of  them  arisen  from  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ.7  "l 

Yes,  Christ  is  the  All-Highest,  the  incomparable 
Son  of  God  and  Son  of  man,  and  no  one  can 
follow  Thomas  a  Kempis,  or  Francis  of  Assisi,  or 
Bernard  of  Clairvaux,  or  John  Hus,  or  Peter  Waldo, 
or  John  Wesley,  in  his  "Imitation  of  Christ" 
without  coming  into  the  possession  of  a  consum- 
mate gentleness. 

Nothing  can  be  more  gentle  than  the  beams 
that  shine  from  the  face  of  the  sun  or  drop  out 
of  the  light  treasures  of  the  moon,  and  yet  sun- 
beams slip  the  icy  bolts  of  winter  and  bedeck  a 
barren  earth  with  beauty,  and  moonlight,  in 
some  mysterious  way,  controls  the  tides  of  the 
sea  and  maintains  the  equilibrium  of  the  earth- 
universe.  Nothing  is  more  subtle  or  more  quiet 
than  gravity,  and  yet  its  realm  is  universal  and 
all  must  bow  to  its  inexorable  scepter. 

Gentleness  includes  sympathy,  kindness,  cul- 
ture, quietness,  deference,  modesty,  but  none  the 
less  is  gentleness  courageous,  tenacious,  wise, 
virile,  and  sometimes  righteously  indignant  with 
evil.  There  is  no  force  mightier  among  men  for 
truth  and  justice  than  when  gentleness  with  holy 
anger  drives  the  impertinent  trespassers  from  the 
sacred  precincts  of  God's  holy  purposes.  A  furi- 
ous gentleness  is  sometimes  necessary  to  expel  the 
disobedient  from  the  Edens  of  earth,  the  dese- 

1  Rev.  F.  F.  Shannon. 


THE  NEW  GENTLENESS  149 

crators  from  the  temples  of  worship,  and  the 
Kaiser  libertines  from  the  abodes  of  men. 

God  gives  to  man  a  gentle  woman  for  his  mother 
because  God  wants  a  man  to  possess  the  gentleness 
of  a  woman  along  with  the  native  virility  of  the 
man — a  gentle  virility.  God  gives  a  woman  a 
virile  man  for  a  father  because  he  wants  the  per- 
fect woman  to  possess  a  virile  gentleness.  When 
God  has  his  way  every  man  will  be  a  gentleman. 

Much  of  the  discontent  in  married  life  is  due  to 
the  absence  on  the  part  of  the  man  of  that  gentle- 
ness without  which  hi  the  courtship  he  could  never 
have  won  the  fair  girl's  heart  and  hand.  I  once 
heard  a  woman  explain  why  she  never  forsook  her 
husband  during  a  period  of  years  hi  which  he 
drank  too  freely.  She  said  that  no  matter  how 
intoxicated,  he  was  never  rude  or  discourteous  to 
her.  By  and  by,  with  her  help,  he  was  able  to 
break  the  chain  of  alcoholic  slavery.  He  was  a 
born  gentleman,  and  even  strong  drink  could  not 
seize  the  scepter  from  him. 

Wars  of  violence  and  aggression  must  go  be- 
cause gentleness  has  a  better  way.  All  vice  and 
avarice  must  go  because  they  are  incompatible 
with  gentleness.  All  bitter  rivalries  must  dis- 
appear because  to  gentleness  belong  brotherly 
kindness  and  charity,  and  gentleness  emphasizes 
the  precept,  "In  honor  preferring  one  another." 

It  is  true  that  only  those  who  possess  strength 
can  possess  gentleness,  for  if  a  person  have  gentle- 
ness without  strength  his  gentleness  is  merely 


150         DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

weakness.  Have  you  noticed  the  influence  ex- 
erted by  a  real  gentleman  when  he  comes  into  the 
presence  of  men  who  are  coarse  and  even  profane? 
True  gentleness  is  not  condescending  and  patron- 
izing, it  is  dignity  and  humility  so  combined  as  to 
make  the  gentleman  approachable  and  engaging. 

"There  are  some  spirits  nobly  just,  unwarped  by  pelf  or  pride, 
Great  in  the  calm,  but  greater  still  when  dashed  by  adverse 

tide; 

They  hold  the  rank  no  king  can  give,  no  station  can  disgrace; 
Nature  puts  forth  her  gentle  man,  and  monarchs  must  give 
place."1 

The  gentleman  is  the  very  highest  product  of  the 
art  of  manliness.  As  Emerson  well  says,  "The 
flowering  of  civilization  is  the  finished  man,  the 
man  of  sense,  of  grace,  of  accomplishment,  of 
social  power — the  gentleman."  I  have  met  men 
to  whom  I  never  revert  in  memory  without  feel- 
ing my  emotions  of  true  manliness  stimulated. 

I  wonder  if  gentlemanliness  is  not  a  native 
quality  of  the  true  American.  All  over  Europe, 
in  England,  in  France,  in  Italy,  the  praises  of  the 
American  soldier  are  on  the  lips  of  all,  and  uni- 
formly there  is  a  reference  to  the  unusual  courtesy 
and  kindness  of  Uncle  Sam's  boys  at  the  front.  A 
French  Cabinet  minister,  in  referring  to  these 
gracious  qualities  in  the  American  army,  said, 
"The  Americans  have  saved  Paris,  and  they  have 
done  it  as  if  we  did  them  a  favor  in  permitting  it." 
I  am  glad  to  believe  that  the  politeness  of  the 
American  soldier  in  France  is  not  an  artificiality 

'Eliza  Cook. 


THE  NEW  GENTLENESS  151 

which  he  removes  as  he  does  his  helmet  or  his 
puttees,  but  it  is  an  innate  quality  which  he  has 
inherited  from  his  English  and  French  ancestry, 
and  which  hi  the  transmission  has  lost  nothing  of 
its  former  glory. 

The  most  kingly  possession  of  kings  is  gentle- 
ness. Every  empire  hi  the  world's  history  which 
has  been  founded  on  force  has  disappeared,  and 
the  most  tragic  application  of  this  principle  is 
seen  in  the  empire  of  William  II,  which,  after 
forty-eight  elusive  years,  is  rapidly  going  into 
oblivion.  The  most  prosperous  and  eventful 
reign  hi  all  the  long  and  renowned  history  of 
Great  Britain  was  when  that  true  woman,  Queen 
Victoria,  sat  upon  the  throne  and  had  for  her  chief 
adviser  her  own  husband,  one  of  the  finest  types 
of  the  real  gentleman  which  European  history  has 
produced. 

Who  do  you  think  is  the  best-loved  ruler  in 
Europe  to-day?  I  am  sure  King  George  and  King 
Albert  of  Belgium  have  the  hearts  of  then*  people, 
and  I  do  not  personally  know  who  is  better  loved 
than  they,  but  I  have  been  much  impressed  with 
the  claim  made  by  a  brilliant  Italian  that  Victor 
Emmanuel  III  is  "undoubtedly  the  most  beloved 
ruler  in  Europe"  to-day.  The  King  of  Italy  in- 
sists that  he  "does  not  rule — he  reigns." 

Unless  I  am  mistaken  hi  my  impressions  of  this 
noble  king,  gentleness  is  his  most  conspicuous  and 
ingratiating  quality.  All  during  the  fearful  war 
he  spent  most  of  the  tune  with  his  brave  heroes  at 


152         DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

the  battle  front.  He  was  a  familial'  figure  in  the 
hospitals  and  the  trenches,  and  has  more  often 
messed  with  the  men  in  their  rude  quarters  than 
with  the  officers. 

A  loyal  Italian  subject  convalescing  from  a 
battle  wound  ecstatically  tells  this  fine  story  of  his 
king.  He  says: 

"I  saw  it  with  my  own  eyes.  We  were  having 
our  rancio,  and  the  king  came  up  and  looked 
around  to  see  that  everything  was  hi  order.  Then 
he  noticed  a  territorial  soldier,  much  older  than 
the  rest  of  us,  sitting  apart  without  touching  his 
food  and  looking  very  sad.  The  king  walked  up 
to  him  and  said,  simple-like:  'Are  you  sick,  or  do 
you  not  like  the  randoT  to  both  of  which  ques- 
tions the  soldier  shook  his  head.  Then  his  Majes- 
ty asks,  'What  ails  you,  my  son?'  and  the  man 
answers  so  he  could  hardly  keep  back  the  tears: 
'Sire,  when  I  left  home  one  of  my  three  children 
was  very  ill.  I've  had  no  news  about  him  for 
nearly  a  month.'  Now,  could  you  guess  what  the 
long  of  Italy  then  said?  Well,  these  are  his 
words:  'I  understand  your  worry;  the  thought  of 
our  children  never  leaves  us,  does  it?  But  you 
should  not  waste  yourself  with  anxiety  simply 
because  no  letters  have  come;  it's  a  week  that  I 
don't  hear  from  home  either,  and  I'm  a  father — 
with  a  good  promising  son  too' — would  you  believe 
it?  And  then  and  there  the  king  called  one  of 
his  aides,  ordered  him  to  take  the  name  and  ad- 
dress of  the  family  of  the  territorial,  and  to  tele- 


THE  NEW  GENTLENESS  153 

graph  them  at  once  in  the  king's  name  for  news  of 
the  little  boy." 

Truly  it  can  be  said  of  King  Victor  Emmanuel 
as  of  David  of  old,  "Thy  gentleness  hath  made 
me  great."  All  over  Italy  the  people  are  shouting 
"Viva  il  Re!  Viva  il  Re!"— "Long  live  the  King! 
Long  live  the  King!" 

Another  story  is  told  of  an  Italian  captain  and  his 
orderly  who  went  to  examine  a  battery  which  hi 
a  little  while  was  to  be  inspected  by  the  long.1 
Unexpectedly  the  Austrian's  guns  got  the  range 
and  in  a  few  moments  they  were  hi  the  midst 
of  a  lively  fire.  A  shrapnel  ball  hit  the  captain 
who,  as  he  fell,  shouted  to  the  orderly  to  run 
and  save  himself.  Even  the  artillery  men  got 
in  a  panic  and  ran  back,  not  even  regarding  the 
king's  motor,  which  was  moving  up  toward  the 
front.  The  orderly  refused  to  leave  his  officer, 
but  tried  to  staunch  the  blood  which  was  flowing 
freely  from  the  wound;  but  the  brave  captain's 
life  was  soon  gone  out,  and  the  orderly  was  heart- 
broken and  excited  to  see  the  men  running  away; 
and  hearing  the  king's  motor  sounding  farther 
and  farther  away,  he  threw  himself  over  the  body 
of  his  dead  captain,  and  moaned,  "Even  the  king 
leaves  us."  He  had  hardly  uttered  the  words 
when  some  one  touched  him  on  the  shoulder,  and, 
turning  around,  he  saw  the  king  himself  standing 
before  him  as  quietly  as  if  there  were  no  shells 
bursting  on  every  side.  The  orderly  arose,  sa- 

»"Viva  il  Rel"  by  Gino  C.  Speranza,  The  Outlook,  November  27,  1918. 


154 

luted,  and  stood  at  attention,  trembling  with  fear, 
when  the  king  said  to  him,  "My  son,  the  auto- 
mobile has  gone,  but  the  king  remains  with  his 
soldiers."  They  sat  down  together  and  in  the 
midst  of  the  bursting  shells  waited  beside  the 
captain's  lifeless  form  until  the  stretcher-bearers 
came  and  carried  it  away.  "Viva  il  Re!"  Gen- 
tleness is  a  kingly  virtue,  and  he  only  is  king  who 
serves  and  loves;  and  anyone  who  loves  and 
ministers  is  a  prince  or  princess,  no  matter  what 
may  or  may  not  be  his  royal  lineage. 

He  who  would  be  chief  among  us  must  be  the 
servant  of  all — and  service  is  the  measure  of  true 
greatness — and  gentleness  is  the  secret  of  service; 
and  if  our  humble  lives  are  filled  with  kindly 
ministries,  we  may  be  King's  sons  and  King's 
daughters  in  the  New  Day. 

The  New  Gentleness  is  the  old  gentleness  anew 
— the  gentleness  which  made  Israel's  warrior  poet 
great  in  the  long  ago. 


rx 

THE  ROMANCE  OF  MAKING  A  LIFE- 
THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 


"0  man,  what  is  good;  and  what  doth  the  Lord  require  of 
thee,  but  to  do  justly,  and  to  love  mercy,  and  to  walk  humbly 
with  thy  God?"— Micah  6.  8. 

(When  visiting  in  Los  Angeles,  and  asked  for  his  autograph, 
Mr.  Roosevelt  wrote  his  name  and  the  above  Bible  reference, 
and  said  that  this  was  his  favorite  verse  of  Scripture.) 

Any  man  who  says  he  is  an  American,  but  something  else 
also — he  is  not  an  American  at  all.  We  have  room  for  but 
one  flag,  the  American  flag,  and  this  excludes  the  red  flag. — 
Roosevelt. 

In  my  judgment,  no  man  in  the  history  of  America,  not  even 
Abraham  Lincoln,  did  so  much  as  Theodore  Roosevelt  to  ex- 
pedite the  era  of  self-government. — Lyman  Abbott. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  ROMANCE  OF  MAKING  A  LIFE- 
THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

ONE  cannot  make  a  study  of  the  development 
and  achievements  of  great  men  without  feeling 
that  the  greatest  thing  in  God's  great  world  is 
not  a  towering  mountain,  nor  a  rolling  sea,  nor  a 
sparkling  jewel,  nor  a  teeming  city,  nor  a  conquer- 
ing army,  nor  an  immortal  poem,  nor  a  transcend- 
ent philosophy,  but  far  and  away  the  greatest  of 
all  earthly  products  is  a  good  and  true  man. 

And  no  marvels  are  so  enthralling  as  the  manner 
in  which  a  good  heavenly  Father  can  build  his 
tallest  souls  out  of  humblest  material.  Not  only, 
as  in  the  olden  times,  is  it  the  world's  greatest  law- 
giver out  of  a  waif  in  a  cradle  in  the  Nile;  and  the 
mightiest  warrior  poet  of  his  age  from  the  lone- 
some isolation  of  a  Judsean  shepherd  boy;  and  a 
nation's  brilliant  premier  from  a  captive  slave- 
boy  providentially  saved  from  a  lion's  den;  and 
the  most  versatile  theologian  from  a  brave  lad 
from  a  distant  Tarsan  province;  and  the  world's 
incomparable  Redeemer  from  the  cattle-stall  of  a 
Bethlehem  peasant's  home  in  a  hill;  but  in  the 
succeeding  centuries,  as  the  loving  scepter  of  the 
Nazarene  Carpenter  has  been  steadily  gaining 
ascendency  over  the  heads  and  hearts  of  man- 

157 


158         DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

kind,  it  is  marvelous  and  romantic  how  God 
can  take  the  weak  things  of  the  world  to  con- 
found the  mighty. 

Now  it  is  a  picturesque  man  from  the  desert, 
hi  the  plain  garb  of  a  monk,  timidly  coming  to 
the  voluptuous  city  of  Rome  and  hurling  himself 
between  the  brutal  gladiators  whose  thirsty  and 
indignant  swords  quickly  drink  his  blood,  but  his 
sacrifice  puts  an  end  to  the  pagan  atrocities  of 
the  Coliseum.  And  again  it  is  a  devout  hermit 
making  his  way  over  hot  deserts  and  inaccessible 
mountains  to  offer  his  prayer  of  adoration  at  the 
sacred  shrines  of  his  Lord's  suffering  and  tri- 
umph; and  finding  the  Holy  City  defiled  by  the 
foul  desecrations  of  the  unspeakable  Saracen,  he 
returns  to  his  native  land,  and  stirs  all  Europe 
to  the  memorable  Crusades. 

It  is  true  that  many  of  the  world's  greatest 
benefactors  have  literally  had  no  places  to  lay 
their  heads,  but  have  spent  their  lives  smoothing 
pillows  for  a  suffering  and  forgotten  humanity. 
John  Wycliffe,  John  Hus,  Peter  Waldo,  and 
Girolamo  Savonarola  all  arose  from  the  humblest 
surroundings  to  positions  of  honor  and  ministry, 
beside  which  knightly  crowns  are  dimmed  in 
their  splendor  and  scepters  are  tarnished.  As  the 
tallest  giants  of  the  forest  grow  from  the  lowliest 
acorn,  so  God  in  the  administration  of  the  King- 
dom often  finds  the  beginnings  of  real  greatness 
in  humblest  soil.  The  lad,  who  in  maturity 
rocked  the  thrones  of  Europe  and  rebuked  the 


ROMANCE  OF  MAKING  A  LIFE    159 

corruptions  of  a  hierarchy  shot  through  with 
avarice  and  perfidy,  and  broke  the  chains  which 
had  bound  truth  to  pillars  of  superstition  and 
oppression,  was  the  son  of  a  humble  German 
slate-cutter,  and  by  continuous  manual  labor 
worked  his  way  through  the  University  at  Erfurt. 

The  greatest  uplifting  force  in  the  civilization 
of  the  restless  eighteenth  century  was  the  product 
of  an  obscure  preacher's  home  in  the  parish  of 
Epworth,  England.  The  historians  vie  with 
each  other  in  assigning  to  John  Wesley  his  place. 
But  who  would  have  thought  of  stopping  at  the 
humble  rectory  where  eighteen  children  crowded 
the  narrow  quarters,  if  he  were  seeking  for  a  per- 
sonality which  was  to  awaken  Britain  and  the 
world  to  a  new  sense  of  sin  and  to  new  ideals  of 
righteousness. 

How  fascinating  is  this  Romance  of  Making 
Men  and  through  them  building  empires,  and 
republics,  and  the  Church  of  Christ?  It  was  only 
a  group  of  troublesome  and  inconsequential,  but 
consecrated  and  sincere  people  who  for  then*  re- 
ligious convictions  were  driven  from  England,  and 
then  made  unwelcome  in  Holland;  but  the  pre- 
cious human  cargo  on  the  little  Mayflower  was  the 
seed-corn  of  a  new  liberty — called  to  be  the  Mes- 
siah of  the  nations — a  new  incarnation  of  the 
Spirit  of  God  in  an  age  of  freedom  of  conscience. 

What  shall  be  said  of  perhaps  the  most  para- 
doxical and  puzzling  personality  in  European  his- 
tory? She  was  a  child  of  the  peasantry  of  France, 


160         DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

and  never  able  to  read  and  write,  always  chaste 
and  modest  in  her  character,  but  with  a  religious 
nature  which  was  deepened  by  habits  of  medi- 
tation and  secret  prayer;  and  she  was  moved  with 
an  ardent  patriotism,  knowing  that  the  rightful 
Prince,  Charles  the  Dauphin,  had  remained  un- 
crowned because  of  the  presence  and  encroach- 
ments of  a  foreign  army.  She  claimed  to  hear 
heavenly  voices  which  commanded  her  to  bring 
liberty  to  her  people,  and  went  forward  at  the 
head  of  a  small  army  and  drove  out  the  invaders, 
and  saw  the  successful  issue  of  her  ambitions  in 
the  coronation  of  Charles  in  the  Cathedral  of 
Reims.  She  was  later  charged  with  heresy  and 
accused  as  a  witch,  and  burned  at  the  stake  on  the 
streets  of  Rouen,  at  the  instance  of  the  Roman 
Church,  to  which  she  belonged  and  for  whose  in- 
terests she  had  successfully  led  the  military  ex- 
ploits. Joan  of  Arc,  the  beautiful  and  brave 
liberator  of  her  people,  holds  a  unique  place  in 
the  annals  of  history. 

The  mystery  of  her  mission  and  personality  is 
even  now  acknowledged  by  the  very  brutal  ecclesi- 
asticism  which  put  her  to  death,  because  only 
twenty-five  years  after  her  death,  which  occurred 
May  30,  1431,  it  revoked  the  sentence  of  disgrace 
by  which  she  had  been  put  to  death,  and  upheld 
the  reality  of  the  young  woman's  divine  mission 
and  inspiration.  With  ruthless  disregard  for  the 
fable  of  papal  infallibility,  our  own  generation 
has  seen  this  noble  national  heroine  canonized  by 


ROMANCE  OF  MAKING  A  LIFE    161 

the  successors  of  those  who  murdered  her,  a  decree 
of  beatification  having  been  issued  hi  1908  hi  her 
behalf. 

How  patient  God  must  be  with  his  poor  human 
creatures  as  with  childish  revenge,  impetuosity, 
and  frivolity,  they  play  at  the  game  of  advancing 
the  interests  of  mankind !  The  really  greatest  men 
and  women  of  the  world  have  been  maligned  and 
murdered  by  prejudice,  ignorance,  and  supersti- 
tion. It  takes  the  world  a  long  time  to  learn  that 
while  we  should  be  most  intolerant  of  hypocrisy 
and  selfishness,  as  was  Jesus  when  he  denounced 
those  who  were  as  whited  sepulchers  filled  with 
dead  men's  bones,  we  should  be  most  tolerant  and 
affectionately  respectful  of  those  who  differ  from 
us  in  their  conscientious  convictions  and  religious 
scruples.  In  essentials  unity,  in  nonessentials 
charity,  and  fervent  love  one  for  another,  should 
be  our  rule  and  aim. 

When,  in  the  evolution  of  the  sublime  principle 
of  personal  liberty,  a  leader  must  be  found  who 
could  lead  a  divided  nation  into  the  promised  land 
cf  peace,  and  freedom,  and  prosperity,  it  was  from 
a  log  cabin  in  a  Kentucky  wilderness  that  the  rail- 
splitter  came  forth  to  bear  away  in  his  strong  arms 
the  broken  shackles  of  millions  of  his  human 
brothers  and  sisters. 

What  a  mighty  force  for  righteousness  the 
humblest  of  the  humble  may  become  when  a 
brave  heart  responds  to  the  impulses  of  divinity 
and  to  the  sobs  of  a  suffering  humanity!  God- 


162         DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

made  men  are  the  men  upon  whom  the  pivots  of 
history  have  revolved.  Sometimes  the  pivots 
have  been  worn  out  under  the  friction  of  stormy 
climaxes,  but  the  epochs  have  turned,  and  the 
martyrs  have  been  immortalized. 

In  that  tragic  hour,  when  in  1859  John  Brown 
paid  the  penalty  of  his  patriotism,  John  Wilkes 
Booth  paraded  pompously  before  the  scaffold  at 
the  head  of  a  company  of  Virginia  militia,  and 
there  was  not  a  tear  of  sympathy  for  the  poor  vic- 
tim in  all  the  gloating  multitude  which  rejoiced  in 
his  execution,  except  in  the  eyes  of  a  few  Negroes; 
and  especially  was  there  a  prayer  and  throb  of 
sympathy  in  the  heart  of  the  mother  whose  little 
black  baby  was  kissed  by  the  martyr  for  liberty 
as  he  was  marched  to  his  death.  Only  six  years 
later  the  bloody  assassin's  hand  plunged  our 
nation  into  a  submerging  flood  of  sorrow;  and,  to- 
day, while  the  name  of  the  murderer  is  spoken 
with  contempt  and  shame,  John  Brown's  soul 
goes  marching  on  and  the  sublime  ideals  for  which 
he  died  are  enshrined  in  the  hearts  of  a  grateful 
republic. 

If  there  is  anyone  who  was  born  hi  the  same 
year  with  Theodore  Roosevelt,  and  graduated 
from  college  in  the  same  year,  and  began  his  pro- 
fessional or  business  life  about  the  same  time,  and 
whose  humble  life  efforts  during  the  last  thirty 
years  have  been  paralleled  by  the  prodigious  en- 
deavors and  colossal  achievements  of  this  mighty 
man,  he  will  feel  a  keen  sense  of  personal  bereave- 


ROMANCE  OF  MAKING  A  LIFE    163 

ment  that  America's  most  typical  leader  passed 
away  in  the  very  zenith  of  his  extraordinary 
career.  The  true  altitude  of  this,  our  great  con- 
temporaneous American,  and  the  correct  profile 
of  his  personality  and  power  cannot  be  fully  cal- 
culated until  we  shall  be  farther  removed  from  his 
mountainous  porportions. 

He  was  a  city  boy  and  a  rich  man's  son,  and  for 
forty  years  was  a  living  denial  of  the  asper- 
sion that  the  sons  of  prosperity  would  not  be 
equal  to  the  strain  and  stress  of  a  successful  and 
useful  life.  Just  when  there  was  danger  that  our 
prosperous  America  would  produce  a  generation 
of  emasculated  young  men  who  had  become  soft- 
ened by  a  pampered  indulgence,  out  stepped  a 
big,  strong  youth,  a  perfect  David  in  his  athletic 
proportions,  and  with  rebuking  severity  he  char- 
acterized as  "mollycoddles"  those  who  were  losing 
then-  grip  and  purpose  because  of  the  enervation 
of  wealth  and  ease.  This  rich  man's  son  could 
break  a  wild  horse  like  a  cowboy  and  wrestle  and 
box  with  experts. 

If  a  man  would  undertake  a  big  task,  he  must 
have  a  strong  body,  and  so  Roosevelt  preached 
the  gospel  of  physical  exercise,  and  the  result  was 
that  in  the  recent  war  no  armies  equaled  the 
broad-shouldered,  deep-chested,  steel-muscled,  and 
rich-red-blooded  crusaders  who  crossed  the  stormy 
Atlantic  and  helped  to  drive  a  murderous  militar- 
ism from  the  earth. 

But  this  strenuous  young  American  who  made 


164         DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

his  muscles  tenacious  in  the  cattle  ranges  of  the 
Northwest  had  a  far  higher  goal  for  himself  than 
merely  to  be  a  sturdy  animal.  He  possessed  the 
robust  conviction  that  the  Creator  gave  the  human 
animal  a  head  and  brain  for  the  purpose  of  mas- 
tering the  available  principles  of  truth;  and  from 
the  beginning  of  his  public  career  he  was  a  vora- 
cious reader  and  student,  and  a  voluminous  writer, 
and  a  ready  speaker.  Intellectually,  Theodore 
Roosevelt  was  the  most  versatile  man  in  public 
life.  He  knew  the  habitats  and  habits  of  insects 
and  animals,  and  became  an  authority  in  natural 
history.  He  threaded  tropical  forests  for  remote 
specimens  of  life;  and  when  in  South  America  he 
sent  back  to  the  curator  of  the  Smithsonian  Insti- 
tution in  Washington  a  rare  species  of  moth  be- 
cause he  knew  that  the  museum  did  not  contain 
it  in  a  vast  collection.  He  was  a  mighty  Nimrod, 
but  his  hunting  expeditions  were  not  for  sport 
merely  but  were  postgraduate  scientific  studies. 

He  had  a  masterful  acquaintance  with  science 
in  many  of  its  complex  ramifications  and  he  was  a 
diligent  student  of  biography  and  history;  and 
was  intimately  acquainted  with  all  the  trends, 
epochs,  climaxes,  and  complications  of  human 
events.  As  an  essayist,  author  and  book  reviewer 
he  had  few,  if  any,  superiors.  In  his  strong  body 
he  had  a  virile,  alert,  keen,  penetrating,  versatile 
mind,  which  was  under  a  high  state  of  persistent 
cultivation. 

But  Theodore  Roosevelt  had  ideals,  and  his 


ROMANCE  OF  MAKING  A  LIFE    165 

manliness  compelled  him  to  fight  for  them.  In 
defending  his  political  convictions  he  became  a 
statesman.  He  was  a  thorn  in  the  flesh  to  the  un- 
principled politician — he  made  himself  a  nuisance 
to  the  leaders  of  his  party  in  New  York  because  of 
his  abrupt  demands  for  honor  and  frankness;  and 
to  get  him  out  of  the  way  as  a  formidable  candi- 
date for  future  position  he  was  deliberately  buried, 
as  it  was  planned  and  supposed,  in  the  Vice-Presi- 
dency. The  schemes  of  his  political  opponents 
proved  the  short-cut  to  greatness  and  power. 
Roosevelt's  convictions  made  him  a  reformer,  but 
he  was  one  of  the  prophets  whom  the  missiles  of 
his  enemies  did  not  undo. 

He  was  a  fighter,  not  because  he  loved  a  skir- 
mish or  a  battle,  but  because  he  was  a  defender  of 
his  faith  and  convictions.  Convictions  are  some 
of  God's  thoughts  which  a  man  can  comprehend, 
and  a  man  who  has  real  convictions  feels  himself 
responsible  for  his  sacred  custodianship.  With 
his  ideals  he  also  had  moral  integrity,  and  his  high 
moral  altitude  did  not  permit  him  to  remain 
silent  when  his  ideals  were  maligned  or  assailed. 

In  all  his  public  utterances  he  was  more  the 
preacher  than  the  politician.  He  was  always  talk- 
ing about  the  victory  of  the  right  in  the  long  run. 
He  was  no  temporizer,  or  trimmer,  or  timeserver. 
He  thought  in  straight  lines,  and  he  went  after  the 
enemies  of  the  public  good  just  as  a  man  would 
leap  upon  a  base  intruder  who  would  harm  his 
wife  or  his  daughter.  He  was  always  vehement. 


166         DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

As  one  has  said,  "He  shot  mosquitoes  and  battle- 
ships with  the  same  gun."  He  was  always  like  a 
refreshing  breeze.  There  was  a  breath  of  purity 
about  him,  and  the  atmosphere  was  soon  cleared 
when  he  appeared. 

His  convictions  were  so  clear  and  ready  and 
dynamic  that  he  was  impatient  with  delay.  He 
felt  justified  in  sharply  criticising  the  adminis- 
tration for  its  dilatoriness  in  getting  into  the  war, 
with  which  position  many  Americans  sympathized. 

After  the  world  war  had  been  going  on  for  a 
year  or  two  and  America  was  humbled  and  in- 
sulted again  and  again  by  an  arrogant  Kaiserism, 
his  book  came  out,  entitled,  "Fear  God  and  Take 
Your  Own  Part."  It  created  a  tremendous  sen- 
sation and  was  a  well-directed  blow  against  an  in- 
sidious and  immoral  pacifism.  Those  who  were 
always  opposed  to  neutrality  were  glad  to  have 
this  big  chevalier  of  justice  and  truth  say:  "While 
we  sit  idly  by  while  Belgium  is  being  overwhelmed, 
and,  rolling  up  our  eyes,  prattle  with  unctuous  self- 
righteousness  about  the  duty  of  neutrality,  we 
show  that  we  do  not  really  fear  God;  on  the  con- 
trary, we  show  an  odious  fear  of  the  devil,  and  a 
mean  readiness  to  serve  him."1  And  again  he 
wrote:  "A  flabby  cosmopolitanism,  especially  if 
it  expresses  itself  through  a  flabby  pacifism,  is 
not  only  silly,  it  is  degrading.  It  represents 
national  emasculation."2 

1"Fear  God  and  Take  Your  Own  Part,"  by  Theodore  Roosevelt  Copyright, 
1916,  by  George  II.  Dorao  Co.,  Publishers. 
•Ibid. 


ROMANCE  OF  MAKING  A  LIFE    167 

Mr.  Roosevelt's  character  was  re-enforced  by  a 
morality  of  such  a  noble  type  that  he  had  the 
courage  and  virility  of  his  convictions.  It  was  his 
moral  courage  which  made  him  a  colonel  in  the 
Spanish- American  War  and  the  victorious  leader 
of  his  picturesque  Rough  Riders;  and  was  it  not  a 
pity  when  a  hundred  thousand  valiant  Americans 
wanted  to  follow  the  doughty  Colonel  into  France 
to  fight  for  democracy  that  this  honor  and  privi- 
lege was  not  accorded  to  them?  What  if  he  was 
not  the  most  technical  soldier?  Foch  risked  his 
reputation  upon  the  military  axiom  that  battles 
are  not  won  materially  but  morally. 

Verily,  it  was  not  another  term  in  the  White 
House  that  he  was  after,  but  as  a  father,  husband, 
patriot,  and  friend  of  humanity  he  wanted  to  have 
a  personal  part  in  demolishing  that  nest  of  bloody 
Berlin  bandits,  and  hi  humiliating  the  Kaiser 
demon  hi  whose  palace  Roosevelt  had  been  himself 
a  guest. 

This  warm-hearted,  affectionate  man  did  not 
have  a  fiber  of  cowardice  in  his  nature.  When  a 
Y.  M.  C.  A.  worker  asked  a  hut  full  of  Sammies  hi 
France  to  write  on  a  slip  of  paper  what  they  con- 
sidered the  greatest  sin,  every  soldier  wrote  down 
"Cowardice"  hi  the  first  place.  To  Roosevelt 
cowardice  was  the  unpardonable  sin — and  be- 
longed only  to  poltroons  and  perfidy.  A  few 
months  ago  he  wrote  to  a  friend  hi  California  that 
he  earnestly  agreed  with  the  picturesque  Davy 
Crockett  when  he  said,  "How  I  do  love  a  man  who 


168         DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

aint  afeered!"  Roosevelt  was  always  "the  man 
not  afraid." 

On  the  threshold  of  his  political  career,  when  a 
beardless  youth  hi  the  New  York  Assembly,  he 
was  not  afraid  to  prefer  charges  against  a  corrupt 
jurist,  and  he  persisted,  against  the  advice  of  his 
party  leaders,  until  the  corrupt  judge  deservedly 
lost  his  place  on  the  bench. 

Some  people  did  not  like  what  they  called  his 
"impulsive  bellicosity,"  but  there  were  many  per- 
sons hi  this  country  who  were  afraid  of  this  fear- 
less man.  He  was  both  a  corrective  and  a  pre- 
ventive, and  no  man  in  public  life  was  ever  so  suc- 
cessful in  "calling  a  spade  a  spade,"  and  at  the 
same  time  in  maintaining  his  good  nature  and  even 
the  respect  of  the  very  people  he  sometimes  caus- 
tically criticized. 

If  he  was  always  as  courageous,  and  sometimes 
as  startling  as  a  thunderbolt,  he  was  also  as  trans- 
parent as  a  sunbeam.  The  inspiration  of  his 
courage  was  his  confident  trust  in  God,  his  ardent 
faith  in  his  fellows,  and  his  radiant  nationality. 
O,  he  was  an  American!  A  glowing,  a  magnificent 
American ! 

He  was  our  King  Arthur  of  the  Round  Table  of 
American  Knighthood,  ever  ready  to  leap  into  the 
jousts  and  measure  his  shining  lance  with  the 
enemies  of  true  patriotism.  His  magnetic  mascu- 
linity aroused  the  devotion  of  men  and  his  chival- 
rous gallantry  the  admiration  of  women. 

He  had  the  prophetic,  almost  uncanny  instinct 


ROMANCE  OF  MAKING  A  LIFE    169 

of  an  Isaiah  and  the  godly  valor  of  an  Elijah. 
Woe  to  the  modern  prophets  of  Baal  who  encoun- 
tered the  unswerving  faith  and  defiant  fidelity  of 
this  mighty  man  of  God. 

While  he  was  quick  to  resent  an  insult  or  an  in- 
jury, he  never  vindictively  nursed  an  enmity. 
Men  loved  him  for  his  magnanimity  and  trusted 
him  for  his  sincerity.  Theodore  Roosevelt  was 
our  beau-ideal  of  stalwart  manliness. 

He  carried  a  copy  of  Plutarch's  Lives  in  his  side 
pocket,  and  became  more  heroic  as  he  associated 
with  the  world's  master  builders  of  a  former  gen- 
eration; and  Bunyan's  "Greatheart"  was  another 
of  his  soul  ideals;  and  one  of  the  maxims  of  his  life 
was,  "Better  faithful  than  famous." 

His  fearlessness  made  him  a  natural  leader. 
While  other  public  men  were  cautiously  waiting 
and  weighing  the  results  of  then*  actions,  Theodore 
Roosevelt  hastened  to  discharge  what  he  felt  to  be 
his  duty  regardless  of  his  own  political  welfare, 
and  about  the  only  bitter  things  he  ever  said  were 
in  sharp,  staccato,  almost  angry  denunciation  of 
cowardly  men.  ^imagine  he  thought  that  the  only 
persons  who  were  certain  to  go  to  everlasting  per- 
dition were  cowards. 

And  because  "the  bravest  are  the  tenderest" 
never  was  a  father  more  lovingly  devoted  to  his 
children  and  loved  by  them.  And  the  children  of 
Oyster  Bay  will  be  lonesome  without  their  good 
friend  who  was  each  returning  Christmas  the  jolly, 
old  village  Santa  Glaus.  And  those  who  know  say 


170        DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

that  behind  the  usual  happy  exterior  of  this  public 
man  there  was  a  broken  heart  which  hastened  his 
untimely  end  because  of  the  death  of  his  brave 
aviator  son. 

Once  at  the  White  House,  when  a  silly  society 
woman  asked  one  of  the  Roosevelt  boys  if  it  were 
not  disagreeable  to  associate  with  common  boys 
in  the  public  school,  the  child  quickly  replied, 
"My  papa  says  there  are  only  tall  boys  and  short 
boys  and  good  boys  and  bad  boys,  and  that's  all 
the  kind  of  boys  there  are." 

No  doubt  there  will  be  many  permanent  and 
pretentious  memorials  of  marble  and  bronze 
erected  hi  honor  of  this  most  typical  of  Americans, 
but  there  will  be  none  which  could  give  to  Mr. 
Roosevelt,  if  he  were  alive,  half  the  personal  grati- 
fication of  the  testimonial  which  his  own  children 
prepared  for  him  when  he  returned  victorious  from 
the  Spanish-American  War.  When  he  reached 
his  home  on  Sagamore  Hill  he  found  all  of  his  chil- 
dren congregated  about  a  pole,  from  which  floated 
a  large  flag  which  they  had  made  with  their  own 
childish  hands,  and  upon  it  was  the  inscription, 
"To  Colonel  Roosevelt." 

It  is  said  that  the  bronze  visaged  leader  of  the 
Rough  Riders  was  moved  to  tears  by  this  tender 
tribute  of  his  own  precious  children. 

I  do  not  for  a  moment  question  the  high  motives 
of  the  courageous  Rough  Rider.  He  was  a  cham- 
pion of  humanity  and  nothing  was  foreign  to  him 
that  concerned  the  welfare  of  the  world.  Hence 


ROMANCE  OF  MAKING  A  LIFE    171 

he  spoke  strong  words  against  race  suicide,  and 
even  in  the  Sorbonne  hi  Paris,  he  said,  "The 
greatest  of  all  curses  is  the  curse  of  sterility,  and 
the  severest  of  all  condemnations  should  be  visited 
upon  the  willful  sterile.  The  first  essential  hi  any 
civilization  is  that  the  man  and  woman  shall  be 
father  and  mother  of  healthy  children,  so  that  the 
race  shall  increase  and  not  decrease." 

And  in  that  same  lecture  he  said,  "Shame  on  the 
man  of  cultivated  taste  who  permits  refinement  to 
develop  into  a  fastidiousness  that  unfits  him  for 
doing  the  rough  work  of  a  workaday  world."  And 
it  was  truly  a  notable  and  prophetic  utterance, 
when  visiting  the  Berlin  University  hi  May,  1910, 
he  said,  "Unjust  war  is  to  be  abhorred;  but  woe 
to  the  nation  that  does  not  make  ready  to  hold  its 
own  hi  time  of  need  against  all  who  would  harm  it; 
and  woe  thrice  to  the  nation  in  which  the  average 
man  loses  the  fighting  edge,  loses  the  power  to 
serve  as  a  soldier  if  the  day  of  need  should 
arise." 

In  November,  1915,  he  said,  bitterly  indignant 
because  America  was  to  him  unreasonably  slow  hi 
entering  the  war:  "Let  us  realize  that  the  words  of 
the  weakling  and  the  coward,  of  the  pacifist  and 
the  poltroon  are  worthless  to  stop  wrongdoing. 
Wrongdoing  will  only  be  stopped  by  men  who  are 
brave  as  well  as  just,  who  put  honor  above  safety, 
who  are  true  to  a  lofty  ideal  of  duty,  who  prepare 
hi  advance  to  make  their  strength  effective,  and 
who  shrink  from  no  hazard,  not  even  the  hazard  of 


172         DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

war,  if  necessary,  in  order  to  serve  the  great  cause 
of  righteousness."1 

He  was'  always  talking  about  justice,  and  the 
nation  did  not  hear  any  better  preaching  than  that 
which  came  from  the  lips  of  this  Christian  layman. 

In  May,  1910,  when  Mr.  Roosevelt  visited  the 
young  men  at  Cambridge  University  hi  England 
and  was  asked  by  them  to  talk  about  the  conditions 
of  success  as  demonstrated  hi  his  own  career,  he 
spoke  to  them  frankly  and  most  entertainingly. 
While  he  acknowledged  that  often  there  was  an  ele- 
ment of  chance  and  that  circumstances  sometimes 
played  an  important  part  hi  success,  he  made  this 
same  notable  statement: 

"There  are  two  kinds  of  success.  One  is  the  very 
rare  kind  that  comes  to  a  man  who  has  the  power 
to  do  what  no  one  else  has  the  power  to  do.  That 
is  genius.  I  am  not  discussing  what  form  that 
genius  takes;  whether  it  is  the  genius  of  a  man  who 
can  write  a  poem  that  no  one  else  can  write  ('The 
Ode  on  a  Grecian  Urn/  for  example,  or  'Helen, 
thy  beauty  is  to  me')  or  of  a  man  who  can  do 
one  hundred  yards  in  nine  and  three-fifths  seconds. 
Such  a  man  does  what  no  one  else  can  do.  Only 
a  very  limited  amount  of  the  success  of  life  comes 
to  persons  possessing  genius.  The  average  man 
who  is  successful — the  average  statesman,  the 
average  public  servant,  the  average  soldier,  who 
wins  what  we  call  great  success — is  not  a  genius. 
He  is  a  man  who  has  merely  the  ordinary  qualities 

l"Fear  God  and  Take  Your  Own  Part,"  p.  383. 


ROMANCE  OF  MAKING  A  LIFE     173 

that  he  shares  with  his  fellows,  but  who  has  de- 
veloped those  ordinary  qualities  to  a  more  than 
ordinary  degree." 

And  in  concluding  his  practical  and  intimate 
address  he  said:  "I  don't  think  any  President  ever 
enjoyed  himself  more  than  I  did.  Moreover,  I 
don't  think  any  ex-President  ever  enjoyed  himself 
more.  I  have  enjoyed  my  life  and  my  work 
because  I  thoroughly  believe  that  success — the 
real  success — does  not  depend  upon  the  position 
you  hold,  but  upon  how  you  carry  yourself  in  that 
position.  There  is  no  man  here  to-day  who  has 
not  the  chance  so  to  shape  his  life  after  he  leaves 
this  university  that  he  shall  have  the  right  to  feel 
when  his  life  ends  that  he  has  made  a  real  success 
of  it;  and  his  making  a  real  success  of  it  does  not 
in  the  least  depend  upon  the  prominence  of  the 
position  he  holds." 

Private  and  unsophisticated  citizens  who  visit 
Washington  city  are  sometimes  shocked  beyond 
measure  to  hear  of  certain  social  scandals  which 
sometimes  involve  men  in  high  position,  but  in  all 
the  long  public  life  of  Theodore  Roosevelt  there 
has  never  been  a  suspicion  against  his  private 
habits  or  character.  Plutarch  said  long  ago  that 
"Caesar's  wife  should  be  above  suspicion."  Mr. 
Roosevelt's  character  was  absolutely  unblem- 
ished in  all  his  public  career.  He  was  never  for 
an  instant  suspected  of  greed  or  graft,  and,  like 
his  lamented  predecessor  McKinley,  he  was  always 
a  tender  husband,  and  an  affectionate  father,  and 


174         DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

a  gallant  home  defender.  He  was  an  old-fash- 
ioned Christian  politician  and  statesman  of  such 
high  morality  that  even  his  worst  enemies  could 
find  no  openings  in  his  armor  as  an  upright  and 
consistent  Christian  nobleman. 

No  fair-minded  person  will  ever  question  the 
high  motives  and  integrity  of  Theodore  Roose- 
velt. A  discriminating  study  of  the  character 
of  this  Christian  statesman  will  reveal  the  simple 
truth  that  the  strong  sentiment  of  the  ancient 
prophet  Micah  was  fundamental  in  his  life.  If  we 
should  be  as  fair  to  him  as  he  endeavored  con- 
tinually to  be  to  others,  we  must  acknowledge 
that  Theodore  Roosevelt  earnestly  sought  to  "do 
justly,"  and  to  "love  mercy,"  and  to  "walk  hum- 
bly" with  his  God.  In  the  spring  of  1918,  when 
the  whole  world  was  hanging  in  the  balance, 
he  said,  "The  times  are  too  big  to  warrant  small 
motives."  From  the  moment  of  his  entrance  as 
a  boy  in  the  early  twenties  into  the  political  life 
of  his  State  until  he  became  the  most  conspicuous 
figure  in  a  world  full  of  big  men,  there  never  was  a 
time  when  for  Roosevelt  the  times  were  not  "too 
big  for  small  motives." 

While  we  do  not  often  think  of  him  as  a  humble 
man,  yet  such  was  the  case,  and  his  humility  made 
him  the  typical  democrat.  He  was  always  found 
to  be  approachable  and  courteous.  Booker  T. 
Washington,  a  child  of  slavery,  was  as  welcome  at 
his  dining  table  as  Mr.  Harriman  the  railroad  mag- 
nate, and  capitalists  and  labor  leaders  were 


ROMANCE  OF  MAKING  A  LIFE    175 

equally  honored  in  his  councilroom.  He  was  in 
continual  conferences  with  men  who  had  expert 
knowledge  on  any  subjects  which  had  to  do  with 
humanity  and  government. 

Because  he  was  human  and  because  he  was  al- 
ways doing  things  and  saying  something,  of  course 
he  would  be  likely  to  make  some  mistakes,  but 
even  his  most  virulent  political  enemy  never  dared 
to  challenge  the  intentional  high  purpose  of  our 
typical  American.  He  followed  the  leadings  of 
divine  ideals  which  beckoned  to  him  from  the 
heights,  and  he  saw  them  because  his  eyes  were 
steadfastly  fixed  upon  the  skies. 

It  is  a  wonder  that  a  man  of  such  impetuosity 
and  pronounced  opinions  did  not  make  more  pub- 
lic blunders  in  judgment  and  administration.  It 
is  to  be  deeply  regretted  that  for  a  time  he  left  the 
party  affiliations  which  had  given  him  his  great 
opportunity,  and  it  was  hardly  less  than  a  tragedy 
in  friendship  when  he  withdrew  his  support  from 
his  life-time  friend  and  confidant,  Mr.  Taft,  but 
all  of  that  can  now  be  passed  over,  because  repara- 
tions, and  reconciliations,  and  adjustments  were 
so  satisfactorily  made  that  if  he  had  lived,  Mr. 
Roosevelt  would  without  a  doubt  have  been  the 
candidate  of  his  reunited  party  for  the  Presi- 
dency. And  no  finer  eulogy  and  more  discrim- 
inating and  affectionate  characterization  of  the 
departed  hero  will  be  written  than  that  which  Mr. 
Taft  issued  immediately  upon  the  death  of  his 
friend.  It  was  another  beautiful  attachment  of 


176         DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

David  and  Jonathan — it  was  "Theodore  and  Will" 
—a  friendship  so  true  and  tender  that  it  could  stand 
even  the  strain  of  a  temporary  estrangement. 
They  were  both  big  men,  and  Mr.  Taft  is  more 
colossal  than  ever.  Concerning  his  old  friend  he 
says:  "He  sent  his  four  boys  forth  to  war  with  the 
pride  of  a  Roman  tribune.  Through  his  father's 
tears  for  Quentin's  death  there  shone  the  stern 
joy  that  a  son  of  his  had  been  given  to  die  the 
death  he  would  himself  have  sought  on  the  field 
of  battle  in  his  country's  cause.  Theodore  Roose- 
velt's example  of  real  sacrifice  was  of  inestimable 
value  to  our  country  in  this  war.  The  nation  has 
lost  the  most  commanding,  the  most  original,  the 
most  interesting  and  the  most  brilliant  personality 
in  American  public  life  since  Lincoln." 

The  solemn  truth  is  that  Theodore  Roosevelt, 
like  McKinley  and  Garfield  and  the  immortal 
Lincoln,  was  another  supreme  sacrifice  for  liberty. 
Lincoln  made  his  sacrificial  offering  at  the  close  of 
the  Civil  War,  and  McKinley  after  the  Spanish- 
American  War,  and  Theodore  Roosevelt  after  the 
greatest  world  war.  It  is  said  that  the  death  of 
one  of  his  sons  in  France  and  the  severe  wound  of 
another  so  grieved  the  heart  of  this  proud  and 
affectionate  father  that  the  disease  which  had 
troubled  him  since  his  scientific  explorations  in 
South  America  was  aggravated,  and  on  that 
night,  even  while  he  was  in  deep  slumber,  he 
slipped  away — another  martyr  for  democracy  and 
righteousness.  It  is  not  forgotten  that  he  had 


ROMANCE  OF  MAKING  A  LIFE    177 

borne  for  years  a  wound  in  his  body  inflicted  by  a 
would-be  assassin,  but  happily  his  life  was  pro- 
longed until  he  was  enabled  to  engraft  upon  the 
public  conscience  many  of  his  exalted  national 
ideas. 

There  was  no  knight  of  the  Round  Table  who 
was  more  magnificently  chivalrous  than  Theodore 
Roosevelt.  He  was  as  stalwart  and  true  as  King 
Arthur,  as  pure  and  noble  as  Sir  Percival.  He 
was  the  avowed  enemy  of  every  person  and  thing 
which  was  evil.  President  Benjamin  Harrison 
appointed  him  a  United  States  Civil  Service 
Commissioner,  and  he  used  to  say  of  him  that  the 
only  trouble  he  ever  had  with  him  was  that  Roose- 
velt wanted  to  put  a  prompt  end  to  all  the  evils 
under  the  sun  between  sunrise  and  sunset.  It  was 
not  easy  for  him  to  be  patient  with  wrong  condi- 
tions which  could  be  quickly  corrected  if  brave 
men  would  only  stand  up  and  demand  their 
rights. 

I  do  not  say  that  Theodore  Roosevelt  was  a 
Fortinbras.  In  fact,  I  think  he  was  a  bigger, 
brainier,  better,  a  far  more  princely  man  than  For- 
tinbras, but  I  do  say  he  was  not  a  weak,  vacillating, 
invertebrate,  procrastinating  Hamlet.  Roosevelt 
was  a  tremendous  dynamo  of  action — always  ac- 
tion. His  life  was  a  succession  of  action  and  re- 
action, but  always  action  in  some  form.  He  never 
reached  one  goal  without  seeing  another  goal 
farther  on,  toward  which  his  energetic  spirit  fared 
away. 


178         DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

I  had  an  opportunity  to  observe  at  close  range 
the  true  nobility  of  Mr.  Roosevelt  in  Buffalo,  when 
President  McKinley  was  mortally  wounded  by 
the  hand  of  a  misguided  assassin.  At  the  first  it 
was  thought  that  Mr.  McKinley  could  not  live, 
and  Mr.  Roosevelt,  as  Vice-President,  hastened  to 
Buffalo.  But  when  the  physicians  became  more 
hopeful,  and  even  trusted  that  the  wounded  man 
might  make  a  successful  recovery,  Mr.  Roosevelt, 
with  the  fine  instincts  of  propriety,  and  to  correct 
any  impression  that  he  was  staying  around  Buffalo 
awaiting  the  honors  which  the  tragedy  of  the  Presi- 
dent's death  might  thrust  upon  him,  quickly 
departed;  and  when,  after  a  few  days,  it  became 
evident  that  Mr.  McKinley  could  not  live,  it  was 
with  utmost  difficulty  that  Mr.  Roosevelt  was 
located  in  his  retreat  in  the  Adirondack  Moun- 
tains. He  hastened  to  Buffalo,  and  on  September 
14,  1901,  after  the  death  of  his  chief,  he  took  the 
oath  of  office.  I  well  remember  Mr.  Roosevelt  at 
the  funeral  services  in  Buffalo.  His  grief  and 
humility  were  most  sincere.  He  stood  at  the  head 
of  the  casket,  and  as  the  brief  service  closed,  in 
clear  and  reverent  tones  the  President-elect  joined 
with  the  minister  in  the  Lord's  Prayer,  and  im- 
mediately the  entire  company  which  filled  the 
house  were  uniting  in  the  comforting  words  of  the 
familiar  prayer.  The  multitudinous  lovers  of  Mc- 
Kinley, who  fondly  pronounced  him  the  ideal 
American,  because  of  the  attitude  and  spirit  of 
his  successor  found  it  not  difficult  to  transfer  their 


ROMANCE  OF  MAKING  A  LIFE    179 

allegiance  and  support  to  Theodore  Roosevelt,  the 
noble,  typical  American. 

He  was  fervently  and  almost  extravagantly  ad- 
mired and  loved  by  all  the  people.  His  familiar 
sobriquet  of  "Teddy"  and  "T.  R."  indicated  how 
near  he  was  to  the  heart  of  the  American  people. 
In  his  passing,  the  whole  nation,  women  as  well  as 
men,  the  poor  as  well  as  the  rich,  the  ignorant  as 
well  as  the  learned,  the  plebeian  as  well  as  the 
patrician,  and  even  many  of  his  political  enemies, 
are  sorely  and  sincerely  bereaved. 

He  was  a  truly  great  man,  and  the  future  of  a 
nation  is  assured  which  has  the  resourcefulness  and 
virility  to  produce  men  of  the  courage,  caliber,  con- 
victions, character,  and  chivalry  of  Theodore 
Roosevelt. 

We  will  be  lonesome  without  "Teddy"! 
"Put  out  the  light !"  These  were  his  last  words. 
So  anxious  was  he  to  live,  and  so  much  had  he  yet 
to  do;  and  so  much  of  a  warrior  was  he  to  the  end 
that  the  only  way  Death  could  be  sure  to  get  him, 
was  to  steal  upon  him  in  the  darkness  of  the  night 
when  the  light  was  out,  and  when  he  was  in  help- 
less and  unconscious  sleep. 

"  'Put  out  the  light!'    Although  the  stars  were  dim, 
What  need  of  feeble  flickering  lamps  to  him 
In  that  high-altared  hour?    The  touch  of  sleep 
Had  brought  remembrance  of  his  tryst  to  keep — 
A  morning  tryst — with  God's  gray  messenger. 
No  sound — no  cry — no  hesitating  stir; 
His  fearless  soul  long  since  had  knelt  and  kissed 
A  waiting  Cross;  had  borne  it  through  life's  mist 


180         DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

From  an  unlighted  lone  Gethsemane 
To  the  Christ-hallowed  crest  of  Calvary. 

"  'Put  out  the  light!'    Men  smile  through  falling  tears, 

Remembering  the  courage  of  his  years 

That  stood,  each  one,  for  God,  humanity 

And  covenanted  world-wide  Liberty! 

The  nation  mourns.     Laurel  the  chancel  rail; 

Muffle  the  drums.     Columbia's  banners  trail 

Their  grieving  folds;  but  memories  of  him  flame 

And  light  the  deathless  glory  of  his  name. 
"  'Put  out  the  light!'     He  needs  it  not  who  won 

A  place  of  permanence  within  the  sun!"1 

And  when  he  answered  the  early  morning  sum- 
mons there  was  plenty  of  light  shining  through  the 
darkness  from  the  golden  city  of  God,  and  a  re- 
assuring voice  which  said,  "Well  done,  good  and 
faithful  servant." 

"He  was  a  man,  take  him  for  all  in  all, 
I  shall  not  look  upon  his  like  again." 

Yes,  we  are  already  lonesome  without  "Teddy." 

*  Edith  Daley. 


X 

THE  NEW  MORALITY 


Morality  without  religion  is  only  a  kind  of  dead  reckoning 
— an  endeavor  to  find  our  place  on  a  cloudy  sea  by  measuring 
the  distance  we  have  run,  but  without  any  observation  of  the 
heavenly  bodies. — Longfellow. 

Stitch — stitch — stitch ! 

In  poverty,  hunger,  and  dirt; 
And  still  with  a  voice  of  dolorous  pitch — 
Would  that  its  tone  could  reach  the  rich! — 

She  sang  this  "Song  of  the  Shirt." 

— Thomas  Hood. 

Disease  is  the  retribution  of  outraged  nature. — Hosea  Ballou, 


CHAPTER  X 
THE  NEW  MORALITY 

A  GENERATION  ago  a  somewhat  conspicuous 
man,  after  he  had  listened  to  a  scathing  rebuke,  by 
a  faithful  preacher,  of  the  prevailing  evils  of  the 
day  of  which  fashionable  society  was  especially 
guilty,  with  hot  indignation  denounced  the  utter- 
ances of  the  sermon  by  saying,  "Things  have  come 
to  a  strange  pass  in  the  world  when  religion  pro- 
poses to  interfere  with  a  man's  private  life." 

It  seems  anomalous  that  any  one  could  ever 
have  supposed  that  a  person  could  be  a  good 
churchman  and  at  the  same  time  an  unmoral,  and 
even  an  immoral,  man  in  his  personal  life.  It 
must,  however,  be  charitably  remembered  that 
nearly  all  noblest  ideals  often  have  passed  through 
long  periods  of  evolution.  Human  slavery,  which 
is  now  universally  acknowledged  to  deserve  John 
Wesley's  characterization  as  "the  sum  of  all  vil- 
lianies,"  was  once  regarded  as  a  bulwark  of  the 
social  organism. 

It  is  not  many  years  ago  since  alcohol  was 
considered  a  useful  and  necessary  stimulant 
and  tonic,  and  it  was  regarded  as  highly  im- 
pertinent for  any  person  to  propose  to  legally 
regulate  the  manufacture  and  sale  of  liquors,  and 
was  considered  offensively  fanatical  for  anyone 

183 


184         DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

to  suggest  that  there  should  be  any  legislation 
concerning  how  much,  and  when,  and  where  any 
individual  should  indulge  his  taste  and  appetite 
for  strong  drink.  A  generation  ago  even  a  great 
political  party  denounced  any  such  proposed  pro- 
cedure as  sumptuary  legislation,  and  asked  for 
the  suffrage  of  the  people  on  that  issue.  But 
to-day,  not  only  as  a  war  but  as  a  peace  measure, 
America  will  soon  be  dry  from  the  Pacific  to  the 
Atlantic,  and  the  reform  of  Prohibition  is  sweeping 
so  mightily  over  the  earth  that  in  a  few  decades, 
it  is  safe  to  prognosticate,  alcohol  as  a  beverage 
will  be  driven  out  of  the  world  into  the  limbo  where 
feudalism,  and  Kaiserism,  and  human  slavery, 
and  thuggism  are  now  submerged  in  oblivion. 

The  liquor  traffic  was  wrong  in  principle  because 
it  licensed  a  few  men  to  commercially  exploit  the 
natural  appetite  of  men,  and  to  make  money  at 
the  expense  of  the  health  and  homes  and  morals 
of  their  fellow  men.  The  past  tense  is  used  be- 
cause any  statement  will  soon  be  out  of  date  which 
refers  to  the  curse  of  alcohol  as  a  present  evil. 

This  is  the  New  Morality,  and  along  with  alco- 
hol militarism  also  is  fast  retreating  from  the 
abodes  of  men.  The  League  of  Nations  will  pro- 
vide better  means  for  the  settlement  of  national 
and  international  disputes  than  a  return  to  the 
sanguinary  methods  of  barbarism  and  Prussianism. 
With  eight  millions  of  brave  men  buried  in  the 
recent  battlefields  of  Europe,  and  millions  of  sur- 
vivors incapacitated  by  the  casualties  of  conflict, 


THE  NEW  MORALITY  185 

and  with  millions  of  broken  hearts  at  home,  and 
with  widespread  devastation  from  which  there 
cannot  be  a  recovery  for  generations,  and  with 
tragic  losses  which  are  forever  irreparable,  mur- 
derous war  has  made  itself  forever  impossible.  It 
was  a  fearful  and  unspeakable  price  to  pay  to  con- 
vince mankind  that  there  is  a  better  way.  This 
is  also  the  New  Morality. 

Turning  our  attention  now  to  conditions  which 
still  continue  to  menace  the  peace  and  happiness 
and  prosperity  and  individual  rights  of  mankind, 
it  is  evident  that  as  the  scepter  of  the  New  Moral- 
ity increases  its  humane  and  kindly  sway,  another 
great  curse  will  have  to  be  driven  out.  It  is  an 
evil  which  while  it  is  an  effect  is  likewise  the  cause 
of  much  of  the  discomfort  and  degeneracy  of  the 
human  family,  and  of  the  anarchy  and  revolution 
which  now  threaten  the  peace  of  the  world.  This 
evil  is  poverty.  In  the  new  day  poverty  must  be 
abolished.  Is  this  practicable?  Is  it  possible? 
If  we  were  to  at  once  prove  that  it  is  impossible, 
we  could  go  about  and  accomplish  it  at  once,  for 
to  do  the  impossible  is  our  heaven-commissioned 
task.  To  abolish  poverty  is  an  equally  high  ideal 
with  the  abolition  of  anarchy  and  militarism.  The 
drastic  reconstruction  of  war  times  gave  the 
country  meatless  and  wheatless  days,  lightless 
nights,  and  sweetless  meals,  all  strictly  imposed 
and  gladly  regarded  that  the  war-riven  countries 
might  be  saved  from  starvation,  and  that  the 
fighting  men  might  have  plenty  of  good,  sustaining 


186        DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

food;  and  the  heaviest  taxes  in  the  history  of  the 
world  have  been  willingly  accepted  upon  incomes 
large  and  small,  with  hardly  a  protest  and  with  no 
intimation  of  confiscation — all  this  hi  order  to 
make  the  world  a  safe  place  in  which  to  live.  Is  it 
not  equally  as  practicable  to  adopt  a  similar  scale 
of  taxation  upon  the  surplus  wealth  of  the  nation 
in  order  that  multitudes  of  men  and  women  and 
children  who  have  not  enough  shall  be  provided 
for  by  those  who  have  more  than  they  need? 

When  the  exigencies  of  war  made  big  minds 
necessary  to  devise  and  administer  just  schemes  for 
railroad  operation  and  food  conservation  and  in- 
come taxation,  men  of  marked  ability  readily 
offered  themselves  to  the  service  of  the  govern- 
ment. The  problem  of  poverty  will  require  the 
same  devotion  and  sacrifice  from  the  men  of  great 
souls  and  great  intellects.  No  haphazard,  desul- 
tory, spasmodic  methods  will  suffice.  Every  in- 
dividual case,  either  of  one  person  or  of  a  family, 
must  be  carefully  studied  and  tabulated,  and  such 
provision  made  as  will  stimulate  the  earning  capac- 
ity and  give  assistance  without  encouraging  in- 
dolence. Indiscriminate  giving  to  the  poor  per- 
petuates poverty  and  irritates  rather  than  heals 
the  wound. 

Our  gifts  should  not  pauperize  but  personal- 
ize— they  should  strengthen  and  lengthen  the 
arm  and  not  shorten  and  enervate  it.  Before 
poverty  can  be  abolished  there  must  be  a  more 
equal  distribution  of  wealth.  The  wealth  of 


THE  NEW  MORALITY  187 

this  nation  reaches  into  the  multiplied  millions. 
Of  this  vast  amount  it  is  said  that  one  fifth  is 
owned  by  three  per  cent  of  the  people,  one  half  by 
nine  per  cent,  and  less  than  one  third  of  the 
wealth  is  owned  by  ninety-one  per  cent  of  the 
people.  About  half  of  the  families  in  the  United 
States  are  not  property  owners;  seven-eighths  of  the 
families  own  only  one  eighth  of  the  wealth,  and 
the  startling  statement  is  made  that  one  per  cent 
of  the  families  own  more  property  than  the  re- 
maining ninety-nine  per  cent. 

Manifestly,  here  is  a  condition  which  will  need 
the  shrewd  statesmanship  of  the  most  unselfish 
and  brilliant  citizens  to  understand  and  correct. 

Is  it  not  evident  that  the  heavier  taxes  should  be 
paid  by  those  who  profit  by  the  "unearned  incre- 
ment" of  their  own  unimproved  property,  and  less 
tax  should  be  levied  upon  the  improvements  on  the 
land? 

All  over  this  country  there  are  people  vastly 
benefiting  by  simply  allowing  their  land  to  be  un- 
sold and  unimproved,  while  those  who  with  much 
economy  are  building  then-  homes  are  paying  ad- 
ditional taxes  for  thus  adding  to  the  beauty  of  the 
city  and  the  value  of  its  real  estate. 

The  slums  must  be  abolished.  Foul  homes  can- 
not produce  pure  characters.  The  crowded  tene- 
ment house  ought  soon  to  be  a  thing  of  the  past. 
In  positive  self-defense  the  city  will  be  compelled 
to  colonize  the  slums,  and  if  necessary  furnish  free 
transportation  fr&m  suburban  colonies  to  places  of 


188        DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

work  in  the  city.  The  submerged  tenth  need  pure 
air  and  sunshine.  It  is  now  a  generation  since 
George  Peabody  furnished  more  than  five  thou- 
sand homes  for  the  artisan  and  laboring  classes  of 
London,  available  at  easy  rental  terms.  In  this  is 
the  practical  suggestion  of  what  can  be  done  to 
relieve  the  congested  sections  of  the  cities.  The 
Peabody  fund  has  doubled  since  it  was  first  given 
by  the  princely  benefactor.  Such  benefactions  are 
not  alms,  they  furnish  opportunity,  and  prove  in 
the  end  to  be  a  good  business  investment.  It  is 
not  alms  that  the  poor  want,  but  opportunity, 
not  charity,  but  a  chance.  Men  are  not  all  born 
leaders,  or  even  provident.  The  man  who  lacks 
initiative  is  often  a  first-class  workman,  but  some- 
body has  to  plan  for  him,  and  help  him  to  find  the 
task  for  which  he  is  fitted. 

All  men  are  born  equal  before  the  law;  but  in 
physical  and  mental  strength,  hi  business  qualifica- 
tions, in  ability  to  make  a  dollar  and  save  a  part  of 
it,  in  resourcefulness  and  ingenuity,  men  are  born 
very  unequal;  and  those  who  are  strong  hi  these 
things  should  bear  the  infirmities  of  the  weak — 
that's  the  New  Morality. 

The  abolition  of  poverty  is  not  the  wild  dream  of 
an  impracticable  visionary.  Plutarch  says  that 
in  Athens  during  the  time  of  Solon  there  were 
none  who  asked  for  alms,  and  that  no  citizen  lived 
or  died  in  want;  and  that  this  was  owing  to  the 
laws  against  idleness  and  prodigality,  and  the  care 
which  the  Areopagus  took  that  every  man  should 


THE  NEW  MORALITY  189 

have  a  visible  livelihood.  What  was  done  in  the 
classic  days  of  pagan  Greece  certainly  ought  to  be 
duplicated  in  the  modern  cities  of  Christian 
America. 

Proudhon,  the  modern  French  philosopher,  only 
encourages  anarchy  and  dynamite  when  he  says: 
"Property  is  robbery."  Property  should  mean 
industry,  frugality,  peace,  opportunity,  and  bless- 
ing, and  if  to  any  man  property  means  robbery, 
that  man  should  be  peremptorily  punished. 

Henry  George1  tells  of  a  very  rich  man  who  said 
to  a  newspaper  man  at  the  completion  of  a  large 
enterprise  out  of  which  he  had  made  millions, 
"We  have  been  particularly  favored  by  Divine 
Providence;  iron  never  was  so  cheap  before,  and 
labor  was  a  drug  in  the  market." 

This  selfish  old  Croesus  was  thus  glad  to  profit  at 
the  expense  of  a  cheap  wage  to  labor;  and  made  his 
blighting  avarice  more  contemptible  and  igno- 
minious by  charging  it  up  to  Divine  Providence. 

Humanity  has  indeed  fallen  among  the  thieves  of 
poverty  and  woe  and  disease.  In  these  days  of 
abundance  and  great  fortunes  the  helpless  should 
be  cared  for  and  the  indolent  should  be  compelled 
to  work.  It  is  the  imperative  duty  of  the  man  with 
vast  riches  to  solve  the  problem  of  the  man  of  vast 
poverty,  for  it  is  more  often  the  case  that  neither 
deserves  either  honor  or  contempt  for  his  condi- 
tion; one  may  be  the  victim,  and  the  other  the 
beneficiary  of  circumstances. 

1  Social  Problems,  p.  105. 


190        DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

Not  long  since,  under  the  shadow  of  Brooklyn 
Bridge,  in  a  garret  room,  by  the  dull  light  of  an  oil 
lamp,  sat  a  woman  double  stitching  seamed  over- 
alls for  four  cents  a  pair.  By  her  side  sat  a  pinch- 
faced  large-eyed  child  of  four  years,  who  by  sewing 
on  buttons  enabled  her  mother  to  earn  three  dol- 
lars and  seventy-five  cents  in  a  week  of  fourteen 
hours  a  day  for  seven  days.  Do  you  wonder  that 
when  a  kind-faced  woman  came  with  a  ministry  of 
love,  she  was  met  with:  "God!  Why  do  you 
preach  to  me  of  God?  I  tell  you  there  is  no  God 
for  the  poor — no  heaven.  There  is  no  hell  except 
this  life,  and  no  devils  except  the  men  who  grind 
the  lives  of  women  and  children  into  dollars  and 
cents!" 

It  is  a  strange  comment  on  our  selfishness  that 
we  have  been  so  slow  in  equalizing  our  surplus 
wealth  among  those  who  have  not  enough;  but, 
thank  God,  the  heart  of  humanity  grows  kindlier 
as  the  years  hurry.  Submerging  poverty  seems  to 
have  more  compensations  than  enervating  wealth, 
but  it  is  the  elimination  of  both  of  these  evils  which 
we  should  seek  that  the  happy  consummations  in 
all  walks  of  life  may  be  greater. 

I  think  it  was  quaint  old  Walt  Whitman  who  said 
one  day,  "Half  of  my  coat  is  mine" — and  society 
will  some  day  be  reconstructed  upon  the  scriptural 
principle  that  "we  that  are  strong  ought  to  bear  the 
infirmities  of  the  weak  and  not  to  please  ourselves." 
Certainly,  it  is  only  social  equity  that  if  my 
brother  is  starving,  and  naked,  and  lonely,  then 


THE  NEW  MORALITY  191 

only  "half  of  my  coat  is  mine,"  for  the  other  half 
belongs  to  him;  and  he  should  as  well  have  a  place 
at  my  comfortable  fireside,  and  in  one  of  my  extra 
beds.  "Whoso  hath  this  world's  goods  and  seeth 
his  brother  have  need,  and  shutteth  up  his  bowels 
of  compassion  from  him,  how  dwelleth  the  love  of 
God  in  him?"  More  persons  are  losing  their  hap- 
piness in  life  because  they  will  not  share  with 
others  than  because  they  are  openly  committing 
sin.  There  are  few  sins  more  heinous  and  deadly 
than  selfishness.  God  will  more  quickly  forgive 
the  excess  of  some  natural  appetite  or  passion  than 
he  will  forgive  us  for  not  ministering  to  a  worthy 
humanity  about  us,  who  would  be  happy  and  com- 
fortable if  they  could  only  have  our  surplus,  which 
we  do  not  need,  and  which  usually  goes  in  extrava- 
gant indulgences.  How  much  of  my  coat  is  mine? 

Yes,  "half  of  my  coat  is  mine."  It  was  a  bitter 
winter  night  when  a  Russian  soldier  was  battling 
his  way  with  difficulty  to  his  barracks  through  a 
blinding  storm.  Suddenly  his  path  was  ob- 
structed by  a  poor,  unfortunate  man  who  was  per- 
ishing in  the  cold.  Immediately  the  brave  soldier 
removed  his  warm  military  cloak,  and  with  his 
sharp  sword  he  severed  it  in  twain,  and  handing  a 
part  of  it  to  the  suffering  stranger,  he  said,  "Half 
for  thee  and  half  for  me." 

That  night,  as  the  soldier  was  sleeping  on  his 
cot,  a  vision  filled  his  rude  cell  with  heavenly  light, 
and  Jesus,  the  Lord,  appeared  to  him,  and,  in 
words  of  ineffable  sweetness,  he  spoke  to  him  and 


192         DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

said,  "Half  of  thy  coat  thou  didst  give  to  me,  and 
part  of  my  glory  I  will  share  with  thee." 

If  we  would  have  comradeship  with  our  Lord, 
and  if  we  would  enjoy  the  exquisite  brightness  of 
his  radiant  presence,  it  will  be  only  as  we  gener- 
ously minister  to  those  whom  harsh  and  cruel  cir- 
cumstances have  deprived  of  the  joys, and  comforts, 
and  necessities  of  life!  "Half  of  my  coat  is  mine!" 

Poverty  will  some  day  be  abolished  and  the 
prayer  of  Agur  will  be  realized:  "Give  me  neither 
poverty  nor  riches."  That  is  part  of  the  New 
Morality. 

Many  deserving  men  by  reason  of  their  limita- 
tions cannot  earn  money  enough  to  properly  care 
for  their  families.  There  should  be  a  fund  built 
up  from  a  reasonable  taxation  upon  the  incomes  of 
the  prosperous  by  which  bounties  could  be  wisely 
given  in  addition  to  the  wages  of  those  worthy 
men  whose  earning  capacity  is  not  equal  to  their 
sacred  obligations.  This  is  the  New  Morality. 

The  first  great  and  notable  victory  which  Gen- 
eral Pershing  won  for  the  cause  of  humanity,  and 
one  which  made  his  later  triumphs  all  the  more  cer- 
tain, if  not  inevitable,  was  in  the  successful  cam- 
paign which  he  waged  against  immorality  among 
the  American  soldiers  in  France.  He  has  the  dis- 
tinction of  being  the  first  great  military  com- 
mander to  fully  appreciate  the  significance  of  com- 
bating and  preventing  impurity  and  consequent 
diseases  in  the  army. 

From  time  immemorial  we  have  heard  of  the 


THE  NEW  MORALITY  193 

necessary  evil  and  among  soldiers  in  particular  it 
was  believed  to  be  utterly  impossible  to  prevent 
more  or  less  dissolute  living.  To  begin  with 
things  fundamental,  of  course  there  is  no  such 
thing  as  a  necessary  evil;  only  good  is  necessary. 
The  fact  that  a  thing  is  evil  is  evidence  that  it  is 
not  in  harmony  with  the  purposes  of  nature,  and 
is,  therefore,  not  necessary  and  permanent.  Evil 
is  not  the  rule  of  the  universe,  but  law  and  order 
and  goodness.  Evil  prevails  only  when  proud 
man  interposes  his  haughty,  defiant  will.  If  only 
evil  were  found  in  nature,  the  universe  would  soon 
be  enveloped  in  chaos.  It  is  obedience  to  law, 
which  is  the  same  as  saying  obedience  to  goodness, 
which  sustains  all  force  and  energy.  Evil  hi  the 
moral  realm  is  disobedience  to  the  order  which  is 
necessary  for  stability  and  progress.  It  is  good 
which  is  necessary;  there  is  not  a  single  evil  which 
is  necessary;  anything  which  is  necessary  is  good, 
and  its  product  is  goodness.  The  social  evil, 
whether  in  the  army  or  out  of  it,  is  not  a  necessity 
to  the  well-being  of  society;  on  the  contrary,  it  is 
an  acknowledged  menace  and  curse,  the  penalty  of 
which  is  an  abomination  of  disease  which  in  some 
medical  books  is  designated  a  plague. 

Nothing  is  necessary  which  debauches  the  mind 
and  the  body,  and  which  transforms  respectable, 
and  useful,  and  healthful  humans  into  miserable 
degenerates.  Prove  anything  to  be  necessary, 
and  you  have  proved  it  to  be  benign,  and  benevo- 
lent, and  stimulating,  and  ennobling. 


194         DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

Those  who  have  opposed  the  social  evil  in  the 
past  have  frequently  been  denounced  as  prudes 
and  Puritans  and  fanatics.  Upon  the  false  hypo- 
thesis that  only  regulation  was  the  sensible  and 
practical  procedure,  many  of  the  European  army 
authorities  provided  for  what  were  considered  the 
physical  requirements  of  the  soldiers.  In  France 
for  many  decades  it  has  been  agreed  that  prohibi- 
tion was  impossible,  and  so  a  system  of  licenses 
and  inspection  was  adopted. 

General  Pershing  was  intrusted  by  the  mothers 
of  America  with  millions  of  their  sons.  Most  of 
these  young  men  were  hardly  more  than  boys; 
many  of  them  were  still  in  school.  The  big  sol- 
dier dared  to  face  the  skepticism  and  derision  of 
those  army  officials  who  stood  for  toleration,  and 
regulation,  and  inspection,  and  declared  himself  a 
firm  believer  in  enforced  prohibition.  He  adopted 
drastic  methods  of  suppression,  and  punishment, 
and  education.  He  has  demonstrated  that  this 
evil  is  no  more  a  necessary  evil  than  any  other  evil. 
The  vicinity  of  the  camps  was  placed  under  stern 
and  vigorous  surveillance.  "The  measures  were 
thorough  and  without  parallel."  Officers  who 
contracted  disease  were  court-martialed.  One 
commander  who  accepted  an  offer  to  take  over  a 
licensed  house  for  American  soldiers  was  removed 
and  the  despicable  house  was  put  "out  of  bounds." 
"An  order  urging  sexual  continence  and  the  main- 
tenance of  high  moral  standards  of  living  was  fol- 
lowed by  search  for  brothels,  the  stationing  of  mili- 


THE  NEW  MORALITY  195 

tary  police  to  refuse  access  to  whole  districts  which 
had  been  put  out  of  bounds,  the  enforcing  of  sci- 
entific treatment  of  men  who  had  been  exposed, 
and  punishment  for  all  who  evaded  treatment  or 
disobeyed  prohibitory  regulations." 

It  can  be  stated  on  the  authority  of  Raymond  B. 
Fosdick,  who  was  chairman  of  the  Commission  on 
Training  Camp  Activities,  that  in  one  French  port 
where  the  disreputable  houses  had  been  open  for 
three  months  and  were  then  closed  for  three 
months,  the  rate  of  disease  decreased  from 
sixteen  to  two  per  thousand  men.  Under  the 
regime  of  the  brave  general,  diseases  from  im- 
morality became  almost  negligible.  In  France 
three  hospitals  with  one  thousand  beds  each  had 
been  built  and  equipped  to  treat  the  Americans 
who  contracted  social  diseases,  and  not  one  of 
those  three  hospitals  was  ever  used.  In  one  group 
of  seven  thousand  four  hundred  and  one  men  there 
was  only  one  case  of  venereal  disease  developed  in 
seven  weeks. 

After  trying  out  his  high  Christian  purpose  in 
this  problem,  which  has  baffled  military  officers  and 
civilian  statesmen  for  generations,  General  Per- 
shing  says  that  it  is  now  his  profound  conviction, 
based  upon  experience,  that  "abolition,  as  distin- 
guished from  regulation,  is  the  only  effective  mode 
of  combating  this  age-long  evil." 

This  is  a  momentous  statement  and  marks  an 
epoch  in  the  progress  of  morality.  The  war  is  now 
over,  but  General  Pershing's  demonstration  re- 


196         DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

mains,  and  in  these  reconstruction  days  which  are 
following  the  war  shall  it  not  be  one  of  the  pur- 
poses and  goals  of  the  New  Morality  to  go  after 
the  social  evil  and  completely  eradicate  it  just  as 
slavery  and  alcohol  have  been  prohibited,  and  just 
as  poverty  and  disease  and  crime  must  be  reduced 
to  the  vanishing  point? 

Shall  it  be  said  that  it  was  safer  for  our  boys  to 
be  in  the  army  with  a  chance  of  being  killed  but 
protected  from  social  vices  than  to  be  at  home  in 
beautiful  and  home-loving  America?  The  men- 
ace of  immorality  can  be  and  should  be  peremp- 
torily removed.  Every  city  and  town  hi  America 
should  be  thoroughly  purged  until  the  curse  of  im- 
purity and  the  wide-spreading  plague  shall  en- 
tirely disappear  from  a  country  which  has  been 
too  long  cursed  with  this  blighting  leprous  misery. 

Despicable  as  the  priest  and  Levite  who  passed 
by  on  the  other  side  may  appear  to  be  to  us  to-day, 
yet  with  covered  faces  we  are  compelled  to  confess 
that  the  wails  and  wounds  and  squalor  and  pro- 
fanities and  impurities  of  the  poor  and  sinful  have 
sometimes  aroused  revulsion  and  not  compassion 
in  our  bosoms.  We  must  keep  a  large  heart  brim- 
ful of  tenderness,  or  our  aversion  for  filth  will  make 
us  disgusted  with  the  poor,  and  our  aversion  for 
intemperance  will  make  us  disgusted  with  the 
drunken,  and  our  abhorrence  for  impurity  will 
make  us  disgusted  with  the  fallen,  and  our  indig- 
nation against  hypocrisy  will  make  us  disgusted 
with  the  hypocrite. 


THE  NEW  MORALITY  197 

Until  we  have  overcome  a  natural  repulsion  for 
the  odors,  scenes,  and  foulness  of  those  suffering 
from  poverties  and  sins,  we  do  all  of  our  bene- 
factions by  proxy.  We  delegate  to  various  organi- 
zations our  ministries  by  furnishing  money  for 
others  to  dispense;  but  the  really  "good"  Samaritan 
renders  a  personal  service  by  himself  binding  up 
the  wounds,  and  pouring  in  the  healing  oil,  and 
placing  the  unfortunate  traveler  on  his  own  beast, 
and  bringing  him  to  an  inn. 

"Who  gives  himself  with  his  alms  feeds  three — 
Himself,  his  hungering  neighbor,  and  me." 

Some  years  ago  Mr.  Moody  made  a  humiliating 
and  tearful  confession  one  night  when  he  was  hold- 
ing a  meeting  in  Santa  Cruz,  California.  It  was  in 
the  spring  of  1899.  On  his  way  from  Oakland  to 
Santa  Cruz  there  came  into  the  train  a  company 
of  young  men  who  filled  the  coach  with  their  pro- 
fanity and  the  fumes  of  liquor,  and  one  noisy  man 
had  a  badly  bruised,  bleeding  face  and  a  swollen 
eye.  This  repulsive-looking  fellow  immediately 
recognized  Mr.  Moody  and  began  to  sing  some  of 
Moody 's  songs,  and  to  indulge  in  jokes  and  jibes 
against  the  great  evangelist.  Mr.  Moody  became 
very  indignant  and  seized  his  handbag  and  de- 
nounced the  whole  proceedings  and  went  into 
another  part  of  the  car.  After  a  while  the  con- 
ductor came  in,  and  he  persuaded  the  fellow  with 
the  bruised  face  and  swollen  eye  to  go  with  him 
into  the  baggage  car,  where  the  conductor  bathed 


198         DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

his  wounds,  and  before  long  the  poor  fellow  had 
dropped  off  to  sleep.  That  night  Mr.  Moody  pub- 
licly confessed  his  chagrin  and  sorrow  that  he  had 
utterly  failed  to  act  the  part  of  the  good  Samaritan 
to  this  pitiable  fellow  who  had  indeed  fallen  among 
the  thieves  of  the  liquor  traffic. 

The  good  Samaritan  was  in  a  hostile  country, 
hi  which  he  was  hated  and  ostracized,  yet  so  full 
was  his  heart  of  real  compassion  that  he  could  even 
minister  to  one  of  his  enemies,  and  gladly  do  for 
him  what  those  who  were  set  apart  to  do  failed  to 
do. 

In  San  Francisco  not  many  years  ago  a  news- 
paper reporter,  sick  and  friendless  and  alone,  was 
much  surprised  when  one  day  Robert  Louis  Ste- 
venson came  to  his  bedside  and  said  to  him :  "I  sup- 
pose you  are  like  all  of  us — you  don't  keep  your 
money.  I  thought  you  might  want  a  little  loan 
as  between  one  man  of  letters  and  another — eh?" 

I  come  more  and  more  to  believe  that  if  any  per- 
son would  be  a  good  Jew,  or  a  good  Gentile,  or  a 
good  Protestant,  or  a  good  Catholic,  or  a  good 
American,  or  a  good  Britisher,  he  must  first  of  all, 
and  always,  be  a  good  Samaritan. 

It  is  not  easy  to  divest  some  very  devout  but 
misguided  people  of  the  notion  that  disease  is  in 
the  world  as  a  part  of  God's  disciplinary  plan  in 
training  his  people  into  obedience  and  righteous- 
ness. But  to  make  our  heavenly  Father  the 
author  of  disease  is  just  as  wicked  as  to  make  him 
responsible  for  all  sin  and  crime.  God  does  not 


THE  NEW  MORALITY  199 

send  disease — it  can  all  be  traced  to  broken  laws, 
and  it  would  not  be  consistent  with  God's  char- 
acter to  lead  his  helpless  children  into  the  break- 
ing of  laws  in  order  to  teach  them  respect  for  law. 

Since  there  are  no  effects  without  an  antecedent 
cause,  all  physical  and  mental  ailments  are  the 
results  of  established  laws  which  have  been  ruth- 
lessly or  ignorantly  disregarded. 

Faithful  physicians  are  diligently  seeking  to 
find  specifics  for  disease,  and  their  scientific  tri- 
umphs lead  them  to  believe  that  somewhere  in 
nature  or  hi  chemistry  there  will  be  found  cures 
and  preventives  for  all  the  ailments  which  afflict 
mankind. 

These  results  cannot  be  attained  by  foolishly 
and  fanatically  declaring  that  there  is  no  such 
thing  as  sickness  or  pain,  but  in  steadily  pursuing 
the  murderous  bacteria  of  disease  until  they  shall 
be  overtaken  as  were  the  savage  bandits  of  mili- 
tarism. It  should  be  a  part  of  the  New  Morality 
to  give  every  possible  encouragement  to  those 
brilliant  scientists  who  are  bending  over  culture 
tubes  and  often  as  voluntary  exiles  in  their  lab- 
oratories are  devoting  their  extraordinary  genius 
to  the  causes  and  prevention  of  disease.  They  are 
devoted  friends  of  humanity. 

It  is  gratifying  to  note  that  it  is  announced  that 
the  Rockefeller  Foundation  with  its  endowment 
of  one  hundred  millions  of  dollars,  after  diverting 
its  activities  for  four  years  to  war  relief  and  army 
welfare,  in  which  it  expended  more  than  twenty 


200         DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

millions  of  dollars,  has  already  resumed  its  regular 
work  of  seeking  to  rid  the  world  of  disease.  Dis- 
ease belongs  in  the  same  category  with  poverty 
and  crime  and  militarism  and  diabolism  and  an- 
archy, and  cannot  be  tolerated  in  that  well-ordered 
condition  which  lies  before  the  world  when  all 
people  shall  seek  to  regard  the  laws  of  their  physi- 
cal being  with  the  same  reverence  as  they  regard 
the  laws  of  then*  spiritual  natures. 

It  is  related  that  New  York's  most  celebrated 
surgeon  once  went  over  to  a  tenement  house  on  the 
East  Side  and  performed  an  operation  upon  a  little 
girl,  who  would  surely  have  died  but  for  the  well- 
known  skill  of  this  brilliant  physician.  As  he  was 
leaving  the  humble  apartment  the  grateful  father 
gave  him  a  quarter — it  was  all  he  had,  but  Dr. 
Bull  was  happier  than  if  he  had  received  a  five- 
thousand-dollar  fee  from  a  wealthy  patient.  And 
when  that  good  doctor  died  a  whole  city  went  into 
mourning  for  him. 

Down  at  our  city  jail  the  other  day  a  trusted 
prisoner  was  sweeping  an  outer  corridor.  The 
quiet  eye  of  an  alert  guard  saw  the  man  stoop 
down  and  pick  up  something,  and  hastily  thrust 
it  into  his  blouse.  Was  it  a  jewel  of  value,  or  a 
shining  blade  by  which  he  could  gain  his  freedom, 
or  a  lost  coin?  The  trusty  was  called  to  the  desk, 
and  prison  austerity  demanded  him  to  show  what 
he  had  so  clandestinely  concealed  about  his  per- 
son. The  man  blushed  and  hesitated,  but  slowly 
obeyed,  and  drew  out  from  his  bosom  a  faded  rose 


THE  NEW  MORALITY  201 

— and  when  the  stern  countenance  of  the  jailer 
relaxed  there  was  a  tear  in  the  eye  of  the  prisoner. 

"What  care  I  for  caste  or  creed? 
It  is  the  deed,  it  is  the  deed; 
What  for  class  or  what  for  clan? 
It  is  the  man,  it  is  the  man; 
Heirs  of  love  and  joy  and  woe, 
Who  is  high  and  who  is  low? 
Mountain,  valley,  sky,  and  sea, 
Are  for  all  humanity. 

"What  care  I  for  robe  or  stole? 
It  is  the  soul,  it  is  the  soul; 
What  for  crown,  or  what  for  crest? 
It  is  the  heart  within  the  breast; 
It  is  the  faith,  it  is  the  hope, 
It  is  the  struggle  up  the  slope; 
It  is  the  brain  and  eye  to  see 
One  God  and  one  humanity." 

This  is  the  New  Morality! 


XI 

THE  NEW  DAY 


Prom  marge  to  marge  across  the  sky, 

God's  hand  is  reaching  wide; 
And  every  tyranny  shall  die, 
As  dies  the  Tyrant's  pride; 
For  God's  new  day  is  at  the  dawn, 

His  light  is  on  the  sky; 
And  Liberty  is  hasting  on, 

Where  Freedom's  guns  reply; 
God's  glad  new  day  is  at  the  door, 

His  skies  are  white  with  noon; 
And  freedom's  winds  their  fragrance  pour, 

Like  fragrances  of  June. 

—Charles  Coke  Woods. 

Out  of  eternity  this  New  Day  is  born. — Thomas  Carlyle. 

Each  day  the  world  is  born  anew 

For  him  who  takes  it  rightly. 

— Lowell. 


CHAPTER  XI 
THE  NEW  DAY 

IN  the  hospitable  Hostess  House  at  Camp  Kear- 
ny  you  may  see  inscribed  over  the  huge  fireplace 
with  its  crackling  logs  and  cordial  comfort  the 
noble  words  of  the  Lifegiver  who  tasted  death  for 
every  man:  "I  am  come  that  they  might  have  life, 
and  that  they  might  have  it  more  abundantly." 

In  all  nature  death  abounds  that  life  may  much 
more  abound.  God  in  his  mercy  and  goodness 
administers  a  divine  law  of  compensation,  in  favor 
of  order  out  of  chaos,  and  happiness  out  of  sorrow, 
and  light  out  of  darkness,  and  good  out  of  evil,  and 
love  out  of  hate,  and  life  out  of  death.  It  is  one 
of  the  miracles  of  spiritual  physics.  In  nature, 
action  and  reaction  are  equal,  but  God,  standing 
within  the  shadows,  keeping  watch  above  his  own, 
graciously  provides  that  all  the  reactions  of  the 
moral  universe  shall  be  more  than  equal  and  shall 
steadily  advance  the  interests  of  order  and  happi- 
ness and  light  and  goodness  and  love  and  life. 
An  art  critic  declares  that  he  reaches  all  his  judg- 
ments as  to  the  merit  of  music,  or  painting,  or 
sculpture,  or  literature  by  one  test,  "Has  the 
hatred  of  life  or  the  love  of  life  been  at  work  here?" 
Indeed,  there  can  be  no  other  basis  of  criticism. 
No  rnan  who  is  a  misanthrope  or  a  cynic  can  in- 

205 


206         DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

terpret  life;  only  those  who  are  exuberantly  in 
love  with  life  can  scale  its  summits  or  fathom  its 
depths. 

I  had  just  reached  the  writing  of  this  phrase 
"exuberantly  in  love  with  life"  when  the  morning 
sun  slipped  up  over  the  horizon,  and  spilled  its 
golden  glory  over  desk  and  manuscript  and  hi 
riotous  beauty  bade  the  world  a  radiant  good 
morning.  Out  of  the  rains  and  shadows  of  the 
night  a  new  day  was  born;  the  birds  attuned  their 
songs,  and  the  flowers  began  to  straighten  up  their 
drooping  heads,  and  the  callas  lifted  up  their  white 
chalices  for  a  draught  of  new  life.  Birds  and  sky 
and  sea,  silent  mountain  and  picturesque  land- 
scape, barnyard  fowl,  all  awoke  in  a  prompt  and 
blissful  responsiveness  to  the  source  of  life  and 
light  and  power  and  beauty;  and  the  old,  new  sun 
seemed  to  say,  "I  am  come  that  they  might  have 
life,  and  that  they  might  have  it  more  abun- 
dantly." 

Love  unlocks  all  of  life's  richest  treasures,  and 
the  love  of  life  will  reveal  the  fullness  of  blessing 
which  Christ  came  to  bestow. 

No  one  can  be  "exuberantly  in  love  with  life" 
and  not  find  his  own  life  enlarging  and  the  lives  of 
those  about  him  improved.  Life  is  contagious, 
and  we  cannot  enter  into  the  fullness  of  life  our- 
selves and  all  life  fail  to  be  enriched. 

Christ's  message  to  the  world  was  life  and  life 
"more  abundantly."  The  mission  of  Christianity 
in  the  world  all  can  be  compacted  in  these  four 


THE  NEW  DAY  207 

letters  L-I-F-E.  Christianity  goes  into  paganism, 
where  the  blight  of  death  is  over  all,  and  saves  the 
lives  of  the  babies  and  the  women.  It  lifts  the 
pall  which  deadens  the  mental  life  of  ignorance 
and  superstition,  and  it  fosters  the  life  of  soul 
and  spirit.  Christianity  hi  civilized  lands  places 
a  steadily  higher  appraisement  on  life,  and  the 
measure  of  the  service  of  any  profession  or  phil- 
anthropy is  its  protection  and  enlargement  of 
life.  Child-labor  must  go  because  it  imperils  life; 
the  liquor  traffic  is  forever  doomed  because  it  de- 
stroys life;  all  vice  is  despicable  because  its  victim 
is  life.  None  is  more  highly  honored  and  beloved 
than  the  faithful  physician  and  surgeon  because 
the  conservation  of  life  is  his  one  supreme  purpose; 
and  the  greatest  triumphs  of  genius  hi  the  late  war 
were  not  in  the  monstrous  fighting  machines  which 
devastated  and  destroyed,  but  hi  the  marvelous 
resourcefulness  of  the  medical  corps  as  they  were 
able  to  conserve  and  recover  the  lives  of  the  sol- 
diers. The  preventives,  cures,  and  surgical  tri- 
umphs have  been,  indeed,  the  miracles  of  the  awful 
war. 

This  is  the  day  of  sacrifice  and  service,  and  men 
and  nations  are  finding  the  supremest  goals  of  hap- 
piness in  service  and  sacrifice.  To  be  sure,  for 
years  as  Christian  virtues  these  graces  have  been 
inculcated  and  practiced,  but  they  have  now  be- 
come the  daily  exercises  of  all  true  citizens  and 
patriots.  Whoever  supposed  that  for  the  benefit 
of  those  whom  we  have  never  seen,  and  for  the 


208         DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

future  prosperity  of  our  own  country  which  we 
may  never  live  to  enjoy,  our  whole  nation  would 
gladly  submit  to  such  heavy  restrictions  and 
taxes?  The  American  people  will  never  go  back 
to  a  provincial  and  ironical  indifference  to  what 
have  been  called  foreign  missions,  or  to  a  cold- 
hearted  disregard  of  those  who  live  in  poverty  and 
vice  in  the  purlieus  of  our  great  cities.  Suddenly 
the  woes  and  joys  of  others  have  become  the  joys 
and  woes  of  ourselves.  During  the  war  in  Bel- 
gium the  man  in  charge  of  the  public  food  distribu- 
tion station  could  not  find  women  to  do  the  clean- 
ing and  scrubbing.  He  was  directed  to  the  home 
of  a  noble  Belgian  woman  for  advice,  where  he 
found  a  group  of  titled  women  assembled.  When 
he  stated  that  women  were  not  available  for  these 
menial  tasks  these  elegant  women  themselves  vol- 
unteered, and  daily  a  sufficient  number  of  the 
women  reported  at  the  food  depot  to  wash  the 
dishes  and  scrub  the  floors.  It  is  also  told  that 
one  of  the  leading  society  women  of  New  York 
found  herself,  in  one  of  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  huts  in 
France,  serving  coffee  to  a  soldier  boy  who  the 
summer  before  had  been  a  dining-room  servant  on 
her  private  yacht. 

One  of  the  most  incomprehensible  things  in  the 
world  is  that  great  Christian  denominations  should 
be  kept  asunder  by  some  unessential  belief  or 
polity  that  has  positively  nothing  to  do  with  sav- 
ing a  world  from  sin.  Peter,  and  Paul,  and  Con- 
stantine,  and  Augustine,  and  Luther,  and  Wesley, 


THE  NEW  DAY  209 

and  Calvin  have  rendered  mighty  service  to  the 
cause  of  truth,  but  when  teachers  of  truth  devote 
themselves  to  Peter  alone,  they  get  the  Roman 
Church;  or  to  Constantine,  the  Greek  Church;  or 
to  Luther,  the  Lutheran  Church;  or  to  Calvin,  the 
Presbyterian  Church;  or  to  Alexander  Campbell, 
the  Christian  Church;  or  to  Wesley,  the  Methodist 
Church — each  with  a  modicum  of  truth;  but  it  is 
only  when  they  give  themselves  wholly  to  a  study 
of  the  Christ  that  they  get  Christianity. 

When  we  get  the  real  Christ,  the  Christ  of 
Thomas  and  Philip,  the  Christ  who  is  "the  way, 
the  truth  and  the  life,"  how  small  do  these  de- 
nominational differences  appear! 

It  is  Christ  and  not  creed !  Is  it  not  beyond  cre- 
dence that  a  church  could  be  founded  upon  a  theory 
that  sudden  conversion  was  the  only  salvation;  or 
that  the  quantity  of  water  only  would  determine 
salvation;  or  that  salvation  was  only  for  a  chosen 
few,  when  Jesus  Christ  in  his  thrilling  ministry 
never  said  a  word  about  the  mode  of  baptism,  or 
the  time  of  conversion,  or  the  number  of  the  elect? 
Can  we  not  hear  the  Master  sadly  say,  "Have  I 
been  so  long  time  with  you,  and  yet  hast  thou  not 
known  me,  Philip?" 

Christ  did  not  come  to  save  dogma  but  to  save 
life — to  save  sinners,  not  to  save  saints.  One 
would  like  to  see  the  forgetting  of  all  distinctively 
denominational  names.  It  is  anomalous  that  the 
followers  of  Jesus  shall  be  known  as  Methodists 
because  they  are  methodical,  and  Episcopalians 


210        DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

because  they  have  bishops,  or  Congregationalists, 
because  their  government  is  vested  in  the  congre- 
gation, or  the  Presbyterians  from  a  Greek  word 
that  very  few  people  would  recognize  if  they  met 
it  in  the  street,  when  there  is  the  beautiful,  all- 
inclusive  name  of  "Christian,"  first  given  to  the 
followers  of  Jesus  in  derision. 

Only  essentials  count.  Christ  is  essential;  serv- 
ice is  essential;  truth  is  an  essential;  pardon  is  an 
essential;  vision  is  an  essential;  purity  is  an  essen- 
tial; righteousness  is  an  essential;  justice  is  an 
essential;  courage  is  an  essential;  character  is  an 
essential;  peace  is  an  essential;  faith,  hope,  love  are 
essentials.  When  we  take  Christ,  the  Great  Es- 
sential, we  have  all  of  these.  Christianity  is 
Christianity — Christ  is  Christianity. 

Is  this  New  Day  to  begin  with  the  physical  re- 
appearing of  Jesus  Christ?  There  are  many  sin- 
cere people  who  are  confidently  looking  for  the  im- 
mediate coming  of  Christ,  that  he  may  set  up  his 
earthly  kingdom,  but  these  are  hopes  born  of  the 
misgivings  of  some  of  the  Master's  devoted  but 
timid  followers.  They  have  persuaded  them- 
selves that  truth  cannot  win  in  the  conflict  with 
error,  that  there  is  not  power  enough  in  the  gospel 
to  save  the  world  from  wreck  and  ruin,  and  that 
Jesus  must  come  hi  person  to  prevent  the  catastro- 
phe of  sin. 

Many  persons  have  never  shared  in  the  belief 
that  the  gospel  would  lose  its  power,  or  the  blood 
of  Jesus  its  efficacy  to  redeem;  and  hence  are  not 


THE  NEW  DAY  211 

thinking  of  the  New  Day  as  being  ushered  in  by  the 
physical  return  of  Jesus,  but  are  just  as  confidently 
believing  that  the  sunburst  of  the  New  Day  will 
witness  such  a  coming  of  the  spirit  of  Jesus,  and 
such  a  recognition  of  the  gospel  of  Christ  as  have 
never  before  been  known.  Christ  is  the  Day 
spring  of  the  New  Morning — Christ  is  the  New 
Day.  Not  Christ  appearing  hi  physical  person 
in  Jerusalem,  or  Shanghai,  or  London,  or  New 
York,  or  Los  Angeles,  but  Christ  coming  every- 
where in  the  power  of  the  truth  he  taught,  and  the 
sacrifice  he  made  once  and  forever  two  thousand 
years  ago;  everywhere  from  Jerusalem  to  Japan, 
from  Damascus  to  Iceland,  from  the  manger  in 
Bethlehem  to  the  crowded  tenement  hi  the  city 
slums,  to  the  gorgeous  palaces  of  the  rich,  to  the 
haunts  of  brilliant  scholarship. 

Vicarious  sacrifice  has  come  to  have  a  new 
meaning  hi  these  epochal  days.  How  many  there 
are  who  have  suffered  and  even  died  that  others 
might  live,  and  among  the  noble  martyrs  whose 
names  will  be  emblazoned  in  galaxies  of  fame  we 
think  of  those  just  as  noble  whose  sufferings  and 
deeds  of  valor  will  never  be  sung.  Have  you  heard 
of  the  ammunition  runners?  They  were  the  brave 
men  who  supplied  the  daring  fighters  who  went 
over  the  top  and  across  No  Man's  Land  and  into 
the  enemy's  trenches.  These  runners  kept  their 
comrades  so  well  supplied  with  ammunition  that 
any  ground  which  was  taken  could  be  held;  but 
so  furious  was  the  fire  that  four  out  of  five  of  those 


212         DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

faithful  runners  were  hit  and  many  surrendered 
their  lives. 

How  many  noble  souls  in  the  battles  of  life  make 
the  supreme  sacrifice  "unwept,  unhonored,  and 
unsung"?  How  many  holy  women,  like  beautiful 
Rachel,  go  down  into  the  valley  of  motherhood  and 
the  baby  comes  back  alone?  How  many  brilliant 
investigators,  like  the  lamented  Pasteur,  willingly 
surrender  their  own  lives  that  specifics  may  be 
found  for  disease?  Never  has  there  been  an  hour 
when  men  hold  to  their  own  lives  less  tenaciously 
in  order  that  the  world  may  be  made  a  safe  place 
in  which  to  live.  The  Redondo  Beach  High  School 
boy  who  lost  his  life  at  the  front,  comforted  his 
mother  when  he  enlisted  in  the  Marines  by  saying: 
"Don't  worry,  mother;  we  can  only  die  once,  and 
one  might  as  well  die  for  his  country."  And  as 
for  money,  all  truly  righteous  people  are  despising 
it  to-day  except  for  what  it  will  do  to  advance  the 
cause  of  truth  and  purchase  immunity  from  suffer- 
ring  and  autocracy. 

Mrs.  Robert  Louis  Stevenson  wrote  from  the 
East  to  her  relatives  in  Los  Angeles  that  during  a 
visit  from  Mr.  Irvin  S.  Cobb,  who  had  just  re- 
turned from  the  battle  front  in  Europe,  he  related 
to  her  the  interesting  story  of  how  a  Negro  soldier 
was  the  first  American  to  receive  the  Croix  de 
Guerre,  with  the  accompanying  palm  branch  deco- 
ration from  the  French  government.  Many  others 
before  him  received  the  cross  alone,  but  the  dis- 
tinguished honor  has  been  conferred  upon  this 


THE  NEW  DAY  213 

hero  in  ebony  of  the  additional  palm  decoration, 
together  with  the  cross. 

Mr.  Cobb  said  that  a  French  general  visited  the 
hospital  where  the  colored  man  was  recovering 
from  wounds  received  hi  the  brave  encounter 
which  almost  cost  him  his  life,  and  pinned  the 
cross  and  the  palm  decoration  upon  his  breast,  and 
then  the  officer  stooped  down  and  kissed  him  upon 
both  cheeks. 

In  these  tragic  and  memorable  days,  when  yel- 
low men  and  brown  men  and  black  men  and  white 
men  have  been  fighting  side  by  side  in  response  to 
the  call  of  God  and  humanity,  to  make  the  world  a 
safe  place  for  mothers  and  their  babies,  and  to 
defend  democracy  from  the  savage  butchers  of 
Berlin,  is  it  not  tune  to  put  aside  all  racial  preju- 
dices and  discriminations? 

Yes,  a  New  Day  has  dawned!  There  is  a  new 
resurrection.  The  men  from  the  front  wrote  us 
that  they  found  God  in  the  trenches.  They  told 
us  that  their  doubts  all  slipped  away.  Men  had 
no  trouble  hi  believing  in  miracles  at  the  front 
because  of  the  many  marvelous  escapes;  and,  as 
they  were  giving  their  effort  and  lives  for  others,  a 
long-lost,  child-like  faith  hi  God  crept  back  into 
then-  hearts.  A  soldier  said,  no  doubt  depreciating 
his  own  humble  fidelity:  "That's  a  part  of  the 
glory  of  the  trenches,  that  even  a  man  who  has  not 
been  very  good  can  crucify  himself  and  hang 
beside  Christ  hi  the  end." 

Men  gave  up  their  lives  as  easily  as  they  lay 


214         DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

down  to  sleep.  When  a  suffocating  gas  attack 
was  made  by  the  enemy,  all  the  defending  soldiers 
clasped  on  their  masks  quickly,  but  there  were  two 
men,  who  were  at  the  guns,  who  could  not  do  ac- 
curate work  with  then1  faces  covered,  and  so  they 
continued  at  their  posts  until  they  were  overcome 
and  were  carried  to  the  rear;  but  there  were  always 
two  other  men  anxious  and  ready  to  step  into  the 
vacant  places. 

At  the  battle  of  the  Somme  it  was  necessary  for 
the  officers  in  charge  of  the  artillery  to  know  the 
exact  location  of  the  advancing  infantry  ahead 
of  them,  in  order  that  reenforcements  could  be 
brought  up  and  the  supporting  fire  could  be 
properly  directed.  The  infantry  which  had  ad- 
vanced too  far  were  signaling  messages,  and  a 
reply  must  be  promptly  wigwagged  back  to  them 
hi  order  that  they  might  hold  their  position  until 
the  guns  could  be  brought  up  a  little  closer.  The 
infantry  needed  to  know  that  reenforcements  were 
on  the  way,  that  they  might  hold  out  a  little 
longer.  It  was  certain  death  to  the  soldier  who 
would  signal  the  message,  "Help  is  coming,"  to 
the  imperiled  infantry,  for  the  Huns  were  spotting 
every  head  in  sight;  but  the  soldier  whose  duty  it 
was  to  wigwag  that  message  never  hesitated  an 
instant.  He  climbed  "over  the  top,"  ran  to  a 
slight  eminence;  unfurled  his  white  flag  and  sig- 
naled the  message,  "Hold  out — help  is  coming!" 
And  a  Hun  sniper  picked  him  off.  He  was  a 
Canadian;  hardly  more  than  a  boy,  but  "it  was 


THE  NEW  DAY  215 

what  he  wanted  to  do."  "He  saved  others,  him- 
self he  could  not  save."  The  soldier  who  related 
the  story  said,  "That's  the  kind  of  peep  at  God 
we  get  on  the  western  front.  It  isn't  a  sad  peep 
either.  When  men  die  for  something  worth  while, 
death  loses  all  its  terror."1 

A  California  boy,  a  Harvard  graduate,  wrote  a 
long  letter  from  France  to  his  grandmother,  telling 
her  about  their  Christmas  celebration  at  the  front. 
After  most  enjoyable  Yule-tide  festivities  three  of 
the  boys  slipped  away  from  the  camp  and  went  to 
a  village  not  far  away  where  they  might  further 
indulge  their  good  Christmas  appetites.  As  they 
were  returning  homeward  in  the  clear  moonlight 
they  heard  a  baby  cry,  and  upon  investigation 
found  a  most  poverty-stricken  little  shack,  in 
which  was  a  baby  nursing  at  its  mother's  bosom, 
and  there  was  a  man  poorly  clad,  and  evidently 
very  tired,  asleep  on  a  rude  bed  on  the  floor.  There 
was  every  evidence  of  dire  necessity,  and  the  baby 
especially  appealed  to  the  soldier  boys,  for  was  it 
not  the  Christmas  time?  So  they  counted  their 
money  and  found  that  one  had  only  a  franc, 
another  had  nothing,  and  the  third  had  nothing 
less  than  a  hundred-franc  note — about  twenty  dol- 
lars. They  felt  that  the  one  amount  was  too  small 
and  the  other  too  large,  and  so  they  departed  with- 
out offering  any  assistance  except  to  express  their 
sympathy.  As  they  continued  back  to  the  camp 
and  went  up  over  a  hill  the  clouds  cleared  away 

1  Lieutenant  Coningsby  Dawson. 


216         DAYBREAK  EVERYWHERE 

and  a  particularly  large  and  beautiful  star  poured 
its  bright  beams  upon  them.  As  they  stopped  to 
express  their  admiration,  one  of  the  boys  sug- 
gested that  it  was  so  brilliant  and  hung  so  low  that 
it  reminded  him  of  the  Star  of  Bethlehem  that 
directed  the  steps  of  the  Three  Wise  Men.  And 
with  one  accord  they  retraced  their  steps,  these 
three  American  boys,  modern  Wise  Men  of  the  new 
yet  ever  old  evangel,  and  came  once  again  to  the 
baby  and  its  mother,  in  a  place  quite  as  poor  and 
rude  as  the  lowly  manger  of  the  long  ago,  and  there 
they  poured  out  all  their  treasure  as  did  their 
prototypes  in  Bethlehem. 

Yes,  it  is  a  New  Day — it  is  the  Day  of  the 
Greater  Love!  "Greater  love  hath  no  man  than 
this,  that  a  man  lay  down  his  life  for  his  friends." 
"Der  Tag"  of  Prussianism  was  a  day  of  slaughter 
and  frightfulness.  The  New  Day  of  the  new 
world  will  end  forever  human  fiendishness. 

Down  at  Cape  May  one  day  the  wire  which 
controlled  the  steering  apparatus  of  a  hydro-air- 
plane broke,  and  the  plane  plunged  fifty  feet  to 
the  ground.  The  gasoline  tanks  exploded  and  the 
machine  and  its  two  occupants  were  enveloped  in  a 
whirlwind  of  flame.  Ensign  Weed  quickly  un- 
strapped himself  and  with  his  clothes  afire  ran 
toward  the  ocean,  and  in  a  moment  he  would  have 
been  safe,  but,  looking  back,  he  discovered  that 
his  companion,  William  Bennett,  was  still  bound 
in  the  plane.  He  rushed  back  and  extricated 
Bennett.  By  this  time  both  men  were  a  mass  of 


THE  NEW  DAY  217 

flames,  and  the  heat  was  so  intense  that  the  crystals 
of  their  watches  were  melted.  They  struggled 
toward  the  sea.  Bennett  fell,  breaking  his  nose; 
Weed  stumbled,  but  he  succeeded  in  dragging  his 
helpless  friend  into  the  water,  where  the  fire  was 
soon  extinguished.  They  were  hurried  to  the 
base  hospital.  Bennett  survived  nearly  a  week, 
but  heroic  Ensign  Weed  died  immediately,  not 
from  the  burns,  though  they  were  fearful,  but  from 
inhaling  the  flames.  Died,  and  yet  he  lived,  lived 
in  that  larger  and  holier  life  where  those  men  never 
die,  who,  in  response  to  the  Greater  Love,  gladly, 
promptly,  gallantly  give  up  their  own  lives  that 
others  may  live.  Never  have  there  been  so  many 
Christlike  imitations  of  the  Greater  Love;  and  no 
one  man  ever  surrenders  his  own  life  that  another 
may  live,  but  that  all  lives  are  enriched  and  hal- 
lowed by  his  sacred  sacrifice.  This  is  the  holy  sig- 
nificance of  this  New  Day. 

When  a  British  soldier  was  asked,  "Where  did 
you  lose  your  arm?"  he  replied  quickly,  "I  did  not 
lose  it;  I  gave  it."  This  is  the  holy  spirit  of  the 
New  Day. 

"Out  of  the  shadows  of  the  night, 
The  earth  rolls  into  the  light; 
It  is  daybreak  everywhere!" 


University  of  California 

SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 

405  Hilgard  Avenue,  Los  Angeles,  CA  90024-1388 

Return  this  material  to  the  library 

from  which  it  was  borrowed. 


\ 


A     000  052  683     o 


